Just about the time of this programme, at 16, I got a holiday job on the bins in Winchester. I was a naive posh boy but the blokes were great to me (as long as you pulled your weight!) and it was the beginning of my realisation that education, qualifications and position are not indicators of intelligence or human value - rather the opposite in my opinion, judging by the quality (lack of) of those who run the world!. I really enjoyed that summer and going back to school seemed such a waste of time that I was gone within weeks, to follow my own erratic path in life.
Might I ask why you, a self-described "naive posh boy," elected on a summer job as a binman? Most middle-class kids, then and now, would (wrongly) think such a job well beneath their station in life.
Fascinating. I love these old programs to get a glimpse into the UK during the past. Honestly things aren’t that different from Philadelphia where I grew up. Seems like things were so much simpler back then when I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s
Amos Keeto I did just that. All I need is on catch up, USA TV (in UK) and RUclips. I still get letters “will you be at home on X date. They never come. Perhaps because the last time they did visit they got a polite ear full.
Is it, that is bad.I remember in the 60's and 70's when my parents and all the neighbours used to tip the binmen and postman, my father always gave them a couple bottles each of his very, very strong home brew bitter.They all loved it and always congratulated him on his brew making.
@@TCM-dw3pz yeah i remember those days well , ,most people in the UK tipped the bin men, postman, milk man ,to say thanks for all your hard work over the year and in all weather's too, it's a bloody shame that you can't do it today it doesn't seem right, it's also the fear these days of losing their jobs just for a few beers at the end of the year , , i still got a galvanised dustbin tucked away in the garden for memories instead of the bloody PLASTIC WHEELIE BINS in all colours , the good days have passed , and not for the better, . I also remember the fire engine going up to the tip site putting out the fires that had ignited through the hot ashes been thrown out in the dustbin, lol, , i don't think it would happen today because the bins would melt, , 👍
When I was a kid in the 1970s there lived a rough family on the main road. I went to school with one of the sons. The old man was a bin man doing our estate. When his lorry turned onto the main road he would trot into his house and eat a cooked breakfast his missus had done for him. She was a big old bruiser and took over his job of emptying the bins until he'd had his meal then they'd swap again with the lorry at the opposite end of the road. It was just accepted. I think back with incredulity to some of the things that went on.
You should film that shit and Tweet the council - it's scandalous that the worker is referred to as a 'binman' instead of them employing a culturally diverse trans Muslim lesbian other-kin. I'm shocked.
@@mrbadger9920 I think she was the one out of the pair of them that'd probably have the predeliction for a bit of the old domestic abuse. She was definitely the boss out of that pair. You definitely wouldn't want a well aimed and intentioned back hander off her, that's for sure. She'd knock you into next week judging by the way she'd haul those galvanised bins.
And here in the qeer old corrupt uk if u never gave the binmen a Xmas box of a few shillings wen they knocked on ur door for it .they tipped your bin on your garden.and would leave ur bin not being emptied..oh the good old days here in the old qeer corrupt uk..U could post a letter first class before 10 am in the morning and it would be delivered later in the same day answer in the old qeer corrupt uk..NOW U POST A LETTER FIRST CLASS AT £1. A STAMP AND YOU MIGHT GET THE LETTER A WEEK LATER IF THE CUNTS AT ROYAL MAIL OR AKA ROYAL FAIL.DONT LOSE IT..BASTATRDS
Yeah, the old metal bins full of ash from the fire lol, bet the bin men weren’t swinging them bins onto my heir shoulders lol… with the arse hanging out it and all the contents all over the road. Them days were more simpler to most who say so because most of us were kids with no responsibilities ✌️… but yes, those were the days!!! Most of us used the phone at the end of the street cos not everyone had house phones. Changed days indeed, and it don’t look like things are gonna get better anytime soon.
brilliant video,absolutely gobsmacked that even as far back as 1972 when I was 11,they were able to recycle so much of the scrap in what appears a very efficient and clean way-brilliant stuff who dug this video up
So simple back then Now we have a HUGE bin lorry , loads of flashing lights , beeping noises , high visibility jackets , health and safety training , garden full of different coloured wheelie bins
We had a bin for ashes from our coal fire, when full it was bloody heavy, the binman would come down the passage, round the back of the house, and hump it up on his back no bother, briing it back empty and shut the gate on his way out. Proper tough job back then.
Average wheelie bin now is 10-15KG. empty... I'd hump bins on my back no bother if they weighed 20-30kg there were less bins and less waste back then. we grab 2 bins at a time and they usually weight 50-100kg each... often they weigh 100-150kg... the 1100+ltr bins sometimes weigh 450-500kg.... Proper easy job back then... You want to know how I know? because not one of these fellas are fit enough to last a single day on my run.... I can see!!!!!!!!!
Yup - if we didn’t use plastic packaging, the quantity of waste we produce would be dramatically reduced. Cardboard and glass are easily sorted and recycled. Plastic waste is so much more complicated to deal with.
Yup - UK population has only gone up by 15M in 50 years. A lot of course, but comparable with most other countries. Not exclusively due to inward migration and plastic waste really isn’t only caused by new arrivals. I mean, wow 😮. Going to hide now coz I’m pretty certain that the reply will be frothing and as unsubstantiated as the last comment.
@@Pikestnt also back then if you went to the shop and got a bottle of pop you paid a penny extra, which you got back when you returned the bottle. The bottles were taken back to the factory by the empty delivery vans, washed and refilled.
insanitybiker Yup. I’m just old enough to remember getting money back on lemonade bottles. Germany has a similar scheme for all plastic and glass bottles. You carry your bottles to an automated recycling bin placed at your local supermarket. The bottles are counted and a voucher is printed for a few Euros which is redeemable in store. Naturally, kids use it for pocket money (as we used to) and the result is almost all plastic or glass bottles are recycled. There is debate about how the plastic is “recycled”. Sadly a lot is incinerated which just re-makes the argument for glass bottles
Back in the days when the dustmen took anything; old bikes, washing machines, garden waste etc, I remember 'em chucking a large glass aquarium tank into the bin lorry & cheering when it got crunched.
Yeah it’s all rising up through the ground now🤢😱🥺. I’m a ground worker, that has worked on a Few of these disgusting pits. It’s unbelievable the gas that is produced. I honestly think we’d be better burning some of the shite that’s thrown into our underworld.
Thank you for posting this gem! What an insightful and wonderfully nostalgic vision in to something that's taken for granted by the masses. I remember when the bin men used to lug the heavy metal bins with those black rubber lids from the garden to the truck, on their backs, toss the rubbish in and put the bins back before jumping on to the back of the truck to move on down the street. If you were a bin man you were a proper man back then! So much respect to our Bin folk who work hard day in day out. And thank you again for posting this awesome video! 👌
For 1972 this was pretty advanced and modern ! - here in 2022 some 50 years later I am sure they still do the same thing with all the unwanted rubbish but on a larger scale !
That was going to be my next question/comment under the video, but you've just answered it! I was going to ask if it still existed and where it was. I wonder if the same crane is still operating or if they've changed it all now and modernised it. Fascinating stuff
The car scrapyard was George Cohen in Willesden, gone now I should think. It was massive 8 acre site and in the early seventies they'd pay about £3 for a scrap car. They drained the fluids, removed the wheels and dropped the rest into the shredder which was actually a kind of hammer mill that smashed a car into small pieces.
Back in the days when the binman would walk into your back garden and take your bin to the waggon and then put the bin back in your garden for you, now they wont move your wheelie bin if the top is slightly open or its pointing in the wrong direction or not close enough to the kurb :D
We need a time machine so EVERYONE in this vid can be SUED for EVERYTHING they did. Oh, the "environmental" horror! The DANGER: potatoes can be "weaponized", you know! Speaking of danger, what of the Dead Cat Bounce? Hello Kitty? GOODBYE KITTY, don't let the bin hit you on the way out? Thanks for posting this THOROUGHLY TRASHY video PROVING the "Earth Day" morons didn't invent recycling, & showing too that things can---COULD, anyway---get done without HAVING to have identitarian mannequins at every turn. "Stop the work! This crew are WHITE! Seek a Sikh! Driver down---you're not a lesbian!" -----The world ITSELF has been processed. This video shows when it worked. The WHOLE WORLD is now curbside: brightly colored, once-functioned, it still looks OK but is no good. The truck is coming, fortunately driven by an affirmative-action hire who has a pill problem. Whoops! Goodbye kiddies!
Broken glass was disposed of, many glass containers were reused, pop was in glass bottles with a refundable deposit, an off license had a beer pump where jugs could be filled to take home, not in aluminium cans, a trip to the butchers saw your joint wrapped in paper, not a plastic tray and shrink wrapped, bread came in waxed paper, not plastic, confectionary came in paper and foil, not plastic. Cars didn’t run fuel efficient, but there was only two or three in the street, not twenty or thirty. It was far from a clean world, but if many of yesterday’s ways were used today, we’d have a much better environment.
@@krazytroutcatcher I remember the deposit on glass pop bottles, if you found a bottle you would take it to the shop , get the 10 pence and buy sweets . Happy days
dennisphoenix1 Yes, I remember going around asking neighbours for their bottles they couldn’t be bothered to return, a way of earning pocket money. There were hazards to glass too, often broken bottles were left in the street or on beaches. Here’s the strange thing. My first job was working for a beverages company which bottled pop and beers, back when bottles were returned for reuse. Later in life I worked as an engineer on flexographic machinery which produces carrier bags and bread packaging...
A lot was, but a lot was not. I think we have more corruption and greed now but also a growing amount of people willing to show empathy and understanding towards others which is the way to go.
@@steven-vn9ui yea sort of I think, freedom of speech has become subjective, with all the troubles in the world all we can do is bring London to a standstill over climate. Priorities have shifted as to not offend anyone
steven I actually think corruption and greed is that same, but due to the internet and having more sources of information we are much better informed, so it appears like it’s worse but it’s just a case of we know more about it. Problem with the internet however is that all of us have more information readily available then at any other time in human history and with this comes the opportunity for people to mis-inform themselves, spread dis-information etc etc
They mostly used to get lobbed onto the corrugated asbestos roofs of council garages where I lived thereby not only imparting vital gynocological and physiological information but also teaching us curious young boys to take exercise and risks. Safe spaces? Pah!
Veritas Vincit...You are my HERO for today. In the garbage tomorrow, to be sure, but my hero for today. My granddad always said, you could look at life as a pawn shop or a porn shop, & i know where i want to be standing: with my Gran, both of us in retrieved raincoats.
@Honest John Perks of the job as they say, I remember a mate of mine from the early 80's that used to do a paper round, he nicked a couple of mags called, Man & woman, more of a sex guide than anything, lol to be honest back then it was almost impossible to get anything hardcore, cheers
Yes, Dario Argento was due to direct with Mimsy Farmer as the binman in the opening scene. There were reported creative difficulties over the planned stabbing frenzy finale in the Edmonton Incinerator Facility Main Reception Area and Thames and Gordon Luck got the gig instead.
What a brilliant little film. Thanks for uploading... as a kid in north wales i remember the days that the binman used to come into the garden to collect the bin and then leave you a new bag , we only ever needed one a week them days ! Remember my day giving them a pound note to chuck a sofa in there 😂.. nowadays on the Wirral not only do you have to put your designated bin on the side of the road you also have to make sure its the right way round. Not joking! They wont collect if the handles are pointing the wrong way round 😮
InfiniteMushroom Now the NGO’s are making your women yet. You just can’t compete with a BBC creampie. Your forefathers boasted that that dun shall never set in the British empire well, the sun is as hot as ever because Britain’s got a hue. What goes around comes around.....
Manually lifted metal bins. They sometimes used to "hook" them above their hip. Then in 10 years, they had those hops written off and often ended up on a wheelchair.
Lovely years....l remember them well. In those days the binman would take your bin right up to your back door, and close the drive gate.....today they leave them blocking pavements, and they end up sometimes in the road. I recall wearing those ultra baggy trousers, with thick crepe soled shoes, and penny round shirts. I can remember going on a coach trip in the early 60s as a kid: and having a packet of crisps with a little bag of salt inside....which you opened, and sprinkled over the crisps. Clothes seemed better in those days......today a lot, irrespective of brand, is made overseas..and it shows in the quality. No food banks, no beggars, no cannabis wafting out of cars, no dingys arriving on beaches. Politicians seemed more up to the job, and they owned combs and used them. City centres were heaving with people, and it was a novelty to see an empty shop. Today when l have visited various city centres: there always seems to be scruffs having an argument in the street, and shouting and swearing. There seems to be more people today on sickness benefits, because they have a gambling or drink or drug problem.....wheras decades ago you had to be at deaths door before they let you claim that. Today the financially incompetent politicians place thousands of able people on these benefits, then import third world migrants. Britain most certainly......is not what it was.
"Loaded into railway wagons and taken to The Midlands... And frankly who cares what happens to it after that provided it's no longer in the Home Counties."
Most of it did stay in the Home Counties, used to backfill all the gravel pits that were dug to provide aggregate for the rebuilding of London and the motorway network, where I lived and grew up in Hertfordshire the gravel workings were everywhere.
I used to next to a landfill site in Essex. Sometimes tihe stink from it was horrendous as all sorts of rubbish was dumped there; paint, chemicals solvents, food etc. Sometimes in the very hours in the morning i coulf hear the odd truck going there and dumping , god knows what deadly rubbish there. They even disposed of loads of medical waste there too.
Ha! That crossed my mind too. 'The Midlands'...might have well said, 'some random hole in the galaxy' Still, levelling up will sort all that out...oh, wait 🤔
Early 70s, I was fully expecting to see the Shelvoke & Drury Revopaks in operation, but it makes sense they had competing trucks of a different design. This one I'm not familiar with, we don't have such a compacting mechanism used here in the US. The closest truck I can think of that we commonly had was the Heil Collectomatic, except in this case, the hopper appears smaller.
we used to live in a block of flats in Southampton & love to watch the binmen emptying the paladins I would follow em all round the estate on my bike fascinated by the way the bin lorry worked
Mike Price I also used to go round on a bike upto 2010 when I was 18 I started loading 9 years on I'm a rcv driver since I was a kid I've been obsessed with refuse collection vehicles
thats the diffrence between now and back then. look how thay talk back then about motorways, like there a thing of wounder, people used to visit the motorway services and have there photo take standing outside it, everything was a surlution of brillance, nothing was a negative, there was a positive perception about how things were dealt with and the super market consumer life was a thing to be celebrated. now the motorways are blocked no matter how big thay make them, plasitc is the poison of the earth, the rubbish problem is becoming the same of mountains, polution and swerage are an ever increasing poison, back then all these things was all an asaw to are problems. now all these ansaws are the problems. lol
I was half expecting something to go horribly wrong in there, and International Rescue to have to swoop in and save the day. Maybe the crane gantry failing, and the crane operator struggling to stay in the glass cab or something? I’m sure Gerry Anderson’s team would have been inspired to produce one hell of an episode of Thunderbirds if they’d seen that place.
I think it is still there but probably changed significantly-assuming its Edmonton having said that if it is just to the south of it is a massive new development just starting on former industrial land.
The good thing about where I live is the garbage truck picks up the container with a robotic arm and no one looks inside. You can put anything in there. lol.
Yes indeed bring back 1972 eh. Most of these poor fellows had to retire in their mid 40’s or even earlier due to crippling back injuries and a host of other musculoskeletal disorders humping our crap around. Still, at least we got our bins emptied.
When I was a child in the early 1970s, living in Northern Ireland, refuse trucks were called dust carts or bin lorries and the rubbish was loaded into the sides under a 'roll top' bread bin type door.
The Edmonton Incinerator is owned by a company called LondonWaste Ltd. Its part of the NLWA-North London Waste Authority which includes the London Boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Hackney, Islington, Waltham Forest. Also Broxbourne from Hertfordshire tip there as i used to work for them and tip there. They do open days and tours on Fridays. Hope this helps. I have been in the waste industry for 20 years if you require any other information.
I haven’t been there since 1999 but I was surprised I recognised the place so easily. Hadn’t changed that much. Used to drive a truck in, get weighed, dump it all in that big pit then back up to the weigh bridge. Got charged the difference.
Hi Stephen thanks for your reply and information I was there again to see it about two weeks ago still hasn't changed but they are knocking it down shortly as they are about to rebuild a larger and modern energy from waste plant on the same site. Who did you drive for if you don't mind me asking?
Back when they used to walk into your garden and carry the bin on their shoulders to the lorry. Our bin men wont pick up rubbish if to heavy, won't collect the cardboard if it's not in the recycling bag, then will throw the empty bags and food waste bins all over the place when done.
Don't blame them, they all have to have lifting courses etc and then sign papers to say they understand. No pay (only SSP) if you're off work. Crews have gone down to 2 (or 1 even) plus driver from a 5 man crew. Strict instructions to only go into properties on an Assisted Collection. Don't shoot the messenger is what I'm saying.
Classic motors now, the VW van on the ground 😢. Also the leyland van , Proper dustbin men collecting, here are some sweets for Xmas that was what a lot of people did when I was a kid for the dustman.
Looks like scenes from a James Bond film. Following that bin truck to a site in North London. Never seen the surrounding area to try to find exactly where, very James Bond like. Seeing that control room to tell where the drivers should go, looks like a room from a hidden base. Seeing the shifty scenes where my waste is going and being handled.
8:20 Pieces of metal are 'grabbed' from a cold lorry. The lorry almost got lifted by the grabber. Amazing how this was made in 1972 and just 27 years after World War Two but because its on colour video film and has a hi-fidelity audio track. It still feels 'modern'
Imagine being bothered about the quality of your bin men. As long as they do their job then why care how they do their job. Also, i don’t think having them ruin their health would be a measurement for how proper binmen they are 🤦🏻♂️
HOLY SMOKE we use brand new DENNIS TRUCKS here in Australia for garbage.... and they're used for NOTHING ELSE. I believe that they're built with dual sided controls in the factory. Left and right hand drive.
Back in the good old days in the UK when you paid your taxes and they emptied your bins once a week. And emptied them into the back of their vehicle, to boot, not all over the road.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a dustman, I thought they only worked on a Thursday morning
Same🤣🤣🤣
Why do they always come thursday mornings ? 🤔
@@martinbitter4162 Cos that was the day they came to our house when I was a kid
@@stevemason5348 I assumed that. Same here when I was a kid, same still today despite being in a different city. It seems to be Thursday thing ;)
I thought they only did my street then went home 😂
I'm a binman here in northern Ireland not a shame of it and proud to be a binman
Fair play to you,, never be ashamed of what you do my man.
So you should be. Good, honest work.
Bloody hard work mate. Fair play
What day do you work?play golf the other 6🤣
Got excellent friendly bin men where I live.
Just about the time of this programme, at 16, I got a holiday job on the bins in Winchester. I was a naive posh boy but the blokes were great to me (as long as you pulled your weight!) and it was the beginning of my realisation that education, qualifications and position are not indicators of intelligence or human value - rather the opposite in my opinion, judging by the quality (lack of) of those who run the world!. I really enjoyed that summer and going back to school seemed such a waste of time that I was gone within weeks, to follow my own erratic path in life.
Might I ask why you, a self-described "naive posh boy," elected on a summer job as a binman? Most middle-class kids, then and now, would (wrongly) think such a job well beneath their station in life.
Fascinating. I love these old programs to get a glimpse into the UK during the past. Honestly things aren’t that different from Philadelphia where I grew up. Seems like things were so much simpler back then when I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s
It’s been a while since your post Chris, so I hope you are not dead, I quite agree, much simpler.
And the van was a British Leyland J4 if anybody's interested
Thanks
I salute you level of knowledge!!!
@@fasthracing it's not that we used to have one as a camper when I was a kid
When Britain was great
Just thankful that was in 1972. Be highly upsetting if they did that to a J4 or any vehicle that era if it was today. (still sometimes happens)
I no longer own a TV, but I wish there were factual programmes like this made today.
What, you threw your TV in the dump like i did? Wonder why?
Similar are still researched and produced. Wish you had a television set now.
I don`t want to pay the tv licence either. I`m looking to get rid of my TV soon and no more BBC. YIPEEEE!!!!!
Amos Keeto I did just that. All I need is on catch up, USA TV (in UK) and RUclips. I still get letters “will you be at home on X date. They never come. Perhaps because the last time they did visit they got a polite ear full.
David Lowe yeh I'm with you on that one mate lol
and the binmen rode on the back of the lorry.they even expected a tip at xmas..i loved my childhood in the 60,s /70,s
Yep I remember them well, the best part of my life. The only time of my life I felt secure and safe, not these days, thank god I am on my way out now.
Our binmen will get an Xmas tip when they stop leaving the bin down the street.
No tips for the bin men these days, it's instant dismissal if caught taking tips from a customer , ,Bloody sad really ,.,.,.
Is it, that is bad.I remember in the 60's and 70's when my parents and all the neighbours used to tip the binmen and postman, my father always gave them a couple bottles each of his very, very strong home brew bitter.They all loved it and always congratulated him on his brew making.
@@TCM-dw3pz yeah i remember those days well , ,most people in the UK tipped the bin men, postman, milk man ,to say thanks for all your hard work over the year and in all weather's too, it's a bloody shame that you can't do it today it doesn't seem right, it's also the fear these days of losing their jobs just for a few beers at the end of the year , , i still got a galvanised dustbin tucked away in the garden for memories instead of the bloody PLASTIC WHEELIE BINS in all colours , the good days have passed , and not for the better, .
I also remember the fire engine going up to the tip site putting out the fires that had ignited through the hot ashes been thrown out in the dustbin, lol, , i don't think it would happen today because the bins would melt, , 👍
When I was a kid in the 1970s there lived a rough family on the main road.
I went to school with one of the sons.
The old man was a bin man doing our estate.
When his lorry turned onto the main road he would trot into his house and eat a cooked breakfast his missus had done for him.
She was a big old bruiser and took over his job of emptying the bins until he'd had his meal then they'd swap again with the lorry at the opposite end of the road.
It was just accepted.
I think back with incredulity to some of the things that went on.
Veritas Vincit plus we were more free then! Unlike the shit we live in now sadly 😉
You should film that shit and Tweet the council - it's scandalous that the worker is referred to as a 'binman' instead of them employing a culturally diverse trans Muslim lesbian other-kin. I'm shocked.
She was probably told to do it or she would get a couple of slaps.
The good ol' days aye? Aye?
@@mrbadger9920 I think she was the one out of the pair of them that'd probably have the predeliction for a bit of the old domestic abuse.
She was definitely the boss out of that pair.
You definitely wouldn't want a well aimed and intentioned back hander off her, that's for sure. She'd knock you into next week judging by the way she'd haul those galvanised bins.
Veritas Vincit Bet you knocked one out over her though?
You don’t see tea chests these day. Great for packing when moving house.
And cutting your fingers on the sharp metal edges.
And to make an improvised bass for skiffle groups.
Assam or Darjeeling?? Perhaps a touch of Earl Gray?! 🙂
I miss the sound of those old metal bins in the early morning. So evocative of our old world.
To true Jenny and back then they took everything thing unlike today
@@dennisshaw9285 Yes!
And here in the qeer old corrupt uk if u never gave the binmen a Xmas box of a few shillings wen they knocked on ur door for it .they tipped your bin on your garden.and would leave ur bin not being emptied..oh the good old days here in the old qeer corrupt uk..U could post a letter first class before 10 am in the morning and it would be delivered later in the same day answer in the old qeer corrupt uk..NOW U POST A LETTER FIRST CLASS AT £1. A STAMP AND YOU MIGHT GET THE LETTER A WEEK LATER IF THE CUNTS AT ROYAL MAIL OR AKA ROYAL FAIL.DONT LOSE IT..BASTATRDS
Yeah, the old metal bins full of ash from the fire lol, bet the bin men weren’t swinging them bins onto my heir shoulders lol… with the arse hanging out it and all the contents all over the road. Them days were more simpler to most who say so because most of us were kids with no responsibilities ✌️… but yes, those were the days!!! Most of us used the phone at the end of the street cos not everyone had house phones. Changed days indeed, and it don’t look like things are gonna get better anytime soon.
@@dennisshaw9285 yeah they took it and threw it into a big hole that, now is probably a field we’re all eating from.
brilliant video,absolutely gobsmacked that even as far back as 1972 when I was 11,they were able to recycle so much of the scrap in what appears a very efficient and clean way-brilliant stuff who dug this video up
So simple back then
Now we have a HUGE bin lorry , loads of flashing lights , beeping noises , high visibility jackets , health and safety training , garden full of different coloured wheelie bins
True😂
Yeah and they refuse to take anything left next to the bin the cowards
@@maverick9767 why cowards?
@@gazonatrike7005 pussys better?
the flashing lights and high vis are so buffoons like you won't hit them!
If only all of our industries were as efficient as this. That scrap van was less than ten years old then !!
We had a bin for ashes from our coal fire, when full it was bloody heavy, the binman would come down the passage, round the back of the house, and hump it up on his back no bother, briing it back empty and shut the gate on his way out. Proper tough job back then.
Average wheelie bin now is 10-15KG. empty...
I'd hump bins on my back no bother if they weighed 20-30kg
there were less bins and less waste back then.
we grab 2 bins at a time and they usually weight 50-100kg each... often they weigh 100-150kg...
the 1100+ltr bins sometimes weigh 450-500kg....
Proper easy job back then...
You want to know how I know?
because not one of these fellas are fit enough to last a single day on my run....
I can see!!!!!!!!!
Cars seen as junk then might be highly collectible now!
Anyone catch a view of that cream coloured, small rear-windowed, VW van/camper?? Worth an absolute fortune today!!
@@barkchip1872 Shame isn’t it!
The most obvious thing here is that we produced much less waste.
Today it’s down to packaging being the reason there is so much waste.
Yup - if we didn’t use plastic packaging, the quantity of waste we produce would be dramatically reduced. Cardboard and glass are easily sorted and recycled. Plastic waste is so much more complicated to deal with.
Yup - UK population has only gone up by 15M in 50 years. A lot of course, but comparable with most other countries. Not exclusively due to inward migration and plastic waste really isn’t only caused by new arrivals. I mean, wow 😮. Going to hide now coz I’m pretty certain that the reply will be frothing and as unsubstantiated as the last comment.
@@Pikestnt also back then if you went to the shop and got a bottle of pop you paid a penny extra, which you got back when you returned the bottle. The bottles were taken back to the factory by the empty delivery vans, washed and refilled.
insanitybiker Yup. I’m just old enough to remember getting money back on lemonade bottles. Germany has a similar scheme for all plastic and glass bottles. You carry your bottles to an automated recycling bin placed at your local supermarket. The bottles are counted and a voucher is printed for a few Euros which is redeemable in store. Naturally, kids use it for pocket money (as we used to) and the result is almost all plastic or glass bottles are recycled. There is debate about how the plastic is “recycled”. Sadly a lot is incinerated which just re-makes the argument for glass bottles
Not just packaging people have more money than they did then
The traffic controller!😉 this is a wonderful snapshot in time.
I love these 1970s documentaries can we see more memories of the past
Back in the days when the dustmen took anything; old bikes, washing machines, garden waste etc, I remember 'em chucking a large glass aquarium tank into the bin lorry & cheering when it got crunched.
Yeah it’s all rising up through the ground now🤢😱🥺. I’m a ground worker, that has worked on a Few of these disgusting pits. It’s unbelievable the gas that is produced. I honestly think we’d be better burning some of the shite that’s thrown into our underworld.
@@martycrush6412 in some places (notably the nordic countries) they have purpose built incinerators to burn the rubbish to produce electricity.
@@martycrush6412Are these the pits that aren't sanitary landfills?
I love these old videos!
Thank you for posting this gem!
What an insightful and wonderfully nostalgic vision in to something that's taken for granted by the masses.
I remember when the bin men used to lug the heavy metal bins with those black rubber lids from the garden to the truck, on their backs, toss the rubbish in and put the bins back before jumping on to the back of the truck to move on down the street. If you were a bin man you were a proper man back then!
So much respect to our Bin folk who work hard day in day out.
And thank you again for posting this awesome video! 👌
Good to see documentaries like this are being recycled.
For 1972 this was pretty advanced and modern ! - here in 2022 some 50 years later I am sure they still do the same thing with all the unwanted rubbish but on a larger scale !
I go to this verry same tip now as a dust cart driver and the ramp and the bays all still look the same just more dirty 😅
That was going to be my next question/comment under the video, but you've just answered it! I was going to ask if it still existed and where it was. I wonder if the same crane is still operating or if they've changed it all now and modernised it.
Fascinating stuff
The car scrapyard was George Cohen in Willesden, gone now I should think. It was massive 8 acre site and in the early seventies they'd pay about £3 for a scrap car. They drained the fluids, removed the wheels and dropped the rest into the shredder which was actually a kind of hammer mill that smashed a car into small pieces.
george cohen part of 600 group had scrap yards all over the uk .back in the 60s i worked for them at the middlesbrough depot
It's still there..under a different name
Back in the days when the binman would walk into your back garden and take your bin to the waggon and then put the bin back in your garden for you, now they wont move your wheelie bin if the top is slightly open or its pointing in the wrong direction or not close enough to the kurb :D
Woke brigade. They are all a bunch of pussies these days. 😫
Metal dustbins . And absolutely everything went into the one bin from glass to potato peelings to dead cats . Then all got mostly sent to landfill .
We need a time machine so EVERYONE in this vid can be SUED for EVERYTHING they did. Oh, the "environmental" horror! The DANGER: potatoes can be "weaponized", you know! Speaking of danger, what of the Dead Cat Bounce? Hello Kitty? GOODBYE KITTY, don't let the bin hit you on the way out? Thanks for posting this THOROUGHLY TRASHY video PROVING the "Earth Day" morons didn't invent recycling, & showing too that things can---COULD, anyway---get done without HAVING to have identitarian mannequins at every turn. "Stop the work! This crew are WHITE! Seek a Sikh! Driver down---you're not a lesbian!"
-----The world ITSELF has been processed. This video shows when it worked. The WHOLE WORLD is now curbside: brightly colored, once-functioned, it still looks OK but is no good. The truck is coming, fortunately driven by an affirmative-action hire who has a pill problem. Whoops! Goodbye kiddies!
AS - great points, my sentiments entirely. See my post above on the same topics. What these eco-loons have gotten away with makes my blood boil.
Broken glass was disposed of, many glass containers were reused, pop was in glass bottles with a refundable deposit, an off license had a beer pump where jugs could be filled to take home, not in aluminium cans, a trip to the butchers saw your joint wrapped in paper, not a plastic tray and shrink wrapped, bread came in waxed paper, not plastic, confectionary came in paper and foil, not plastic.
Cars didn’t run fuel efficient, but there was only two or three in the street, not twenty or thirty.
It was far from a clean world, but if many of yesterday’s ways were used today, we’d have a much better environment.
@@krazytroutcatcher I remember the deposit on glass pop bottles, if you found a bottle you would take it to the shop , get the 10 pence and buy sweets . Happy days
dennisphoenix1 Yes, I remember going around asking neighbours for their bottles they couldn’t be bothered to return, a way of earning pocket money.
There were hazards to glass too, often broken bottles were left in the street or on beaches.
Here’s the strange thing. My first job was working for a beverages company which bottled pop and beers, back when bottles were returned for reuse.
Later in life I worked as an engineer on flexographic machinery which produces carrier bags and bread packaging...
The reporter and chaired monologue is absolutely fantastic.😉
Ikr! They just don't make em' like that anymore
This has the feel of a Monte Python movie.
Everything seemed better back then
A lot was, but a lot was not. I think we have more corruption and greed now but also a growing amount of people willing to show empathy and understanding towards others which is the way to go.
@@steven-vn9ui yea sort of I think, freedom of speech has become subjective, with all the troubles in the world all we can do is bring London to a standstill over climate. Priorities have shifted as to not offend anyone
steven I actually think corruption and greed is that same, but due to the internet and having more sources of information we are much better informed, so it appears like it’s worse but it’s just a case of we know more about it.
Problem with the internet however is that all of us have more information readily available then at any other time in human history and with this comes the opportunity for people to mis-inform themselves, spread dis-information etc etc
@@matt4239 that is a very good point actually Matt. I see what you mean
@@bonkeydollocks1879 yes, agreed there buddy.
Probably lots of dumped porn magazines would have been “recycled” before ending up in the furnace.
They mostly used to get lobbed onto the corrugated asbestos roofs of council garages where I lived thereby not only imparting vital gynocological and physiological information but also teaching us curious young boys to take exercise and risks.
Safe spaces? Pah!
Veritas Vincit...You are my HERO for today. In the garbage tomorrow, to be sure, but my hero for today. My granddad always said, you could look at life as a pawn shop or a porn shop, & i know where i want to be standing: with my Gran, both of us in retrieved raincoats.
Veritas Vincit Most were found in the bushes over the park!
Was 'Razzle' about back then lol
@Honest John Perks of the job as they say, I remember a mate of mine from the early 80's that used to do a paper round, he nicked a couple of mags called, Man & woman, more of a sex guide than anything, lol to be honest back then it was almost impossible to get anything hardcore, cheers
Split screen VW campervan at 8:16, worth its weight in gold today.
9:02 very brief glimpse of metallic blue E-Type Jag on the pile as well.
Well spotted fellow retro car guys.
It's amazing just how old some cars were when they got scrapped, that red van for example was only 8 years old.
Westfalia. Prob an SO34 or SO23. I had a beauty. Sold it back to VW. Now takes pride of place in their oldtimer museum.
I saw the beige cream splitty as well and cried 😥
Even those old tea chests be worth money these days
No one will ever know how well this film would have done at the Cannes film festival.
Yes, Dario Argento was due to direct with Mimsy Farmer as the binman in the opening scene. There were reported creative difficulties over the planned stabbing frenzy finale in the Edmonton Incinerator Facility Main Reception Area and Thames and Gordon Luck got the gig instead.
What a brilliant little film. Thanks for uploading... as a kid in north wales i remember the days that the binman used to come into the garden to collect the bin and then leave you a new bag , we only ever needed one a week them days ! Remember my day giving them a pound note to chuck a sofa in there 😂.. nowadays on the Wirral not only do you have to put your designated bin on the side of the road you also have to make sure its the right way round. Not joking! They wont collect if the handles are pointing the wrong way round 😮
Keep looking for Regan to pop up on the screen to rouse the owner for information on a BLAG
That was my thought, Oi you’re nicked son. Put ya trousers on.
We’re the sweeney son, and we haven’t had any dinner!
My old mans a dustman those were the days sadly this countrys FUKKED
Did her wear a dust mans hat and Gorblimey trousers by any chance?
@@fasthracing yeah and he lived in a council flat
Thought he might @@lesliegreenhoff1348
InfiniteMushroom
Now the NGO’s are making your women yet. You just can’t compete with a BBC creampie.
Your forefathers boasted that that dun shall never set in the British empire well, the sun is as hot as ever because Britain’s got a hue.
What goes around comes around.....
@InfiniteMushroom poe?
Manually lifted metal bins. They sometimes used to "hook" them above their hip. Then in 10 years, they had those hops written off and often ended up on a wheelchair.
In them days a lot of rubbish as it was called then, waste now, would be chucked on the fire at home, most of the bins contained ashes.
Derek Hart our ashes for the fire when in the driveway. 😂
Yes a lot of ashes - there were a lot of open fires in the houses where I lived in the 1970's
Used to say on bin lids ‘no hot ashes.’.
Aye i remember this nothing went into our bin that could be burnt to heat the house
The cost of getting rid of that level of waste was ash/tranomical
I never thought I'd see another of those blue cabbed dustbin lorries. I am literally 4 years old again.
Awesome viewing. Thank you for uploading.
Brilliant video. Thank you for sharing. Well done.
Lovely years....l remember them well. In those days the binman would take your bin right up to your back door, and close the drive gate.....today they leave them blocking pavements, and they end up sometimes in the road. I recall wearing those ultra baggy trousers, with thick crepe soled shoes, and penny round shirts. I can remember going on a coach trip in the early 60s as a kid: and having a packet of crisps with a little bag of salt inside....which you opened, and sprinkled over the crisps. Clothes seemed better in those days......today a lot, irrespective of brand, is made overseas..and it shows in the quality. No food banks, no beggars, no cannabis wafting out of cars, no dingys arriving on beaches. Politicians seemed more up to the job, and they owned combs and used them. City centres were heaving with people, and it was a novelty to see an empty shop. Today when l have visited various city centres: there always seems to be scruffs having an argument in the street, and shouting and swearing. There seems to be more people today on sickness benefits, because they have a gambling or drink or drug problem.....wheras decades ago you had to be at deaths door before they let you claim that. Today the financially incompetent politicians place thousands of able people on these benefits, then import third world migrants. Britain most certainly......is not what it was.
Don't emigrate to Australia. We're on the same train.
The depth of the drop behind bin #9....
They must have anticipated how much rubbish per day would be heading their way in the future?
"Loaded into railway wagons and taken to The Midlands... And frankly who cares what happens to it after that provided it's no longer in the Home Counties."
Most of it did stay in the Home Counties, used to backfill all the gravel pits that were dug to provide aggregate for the rebuilding of London and the motorway network, where I lived and grew up in Hertfordshire the gravel workings were everywhere.
I used to next to a landfill site in Essex. Sometimes tihe stink from it was horrendous as all sorts of rubbish was dumped there; paint, chemicals solvents, food etc. Sometimes in the very hours in the morning i coulf hear the odd truck going there and dumping , god knows what deadly rubbish there. They even disposed of loads of medical waste there too.
Ha! That crossed my mind too. 'The Midlands'...might have well said, 'some random hole in the galaxy'
Still, levelling up will sort all that out...oh, wait 🤔
No way! Just saw a vw type 1 on the pile! 😧
Worth a lot now...the t1s
Type 2: Type 1 was the Beetle.
I saw two. I'm sure I saw a jaguar xk120 in there too
Xk120 I think at 9:01
haha yer i saw that, painful to see, it would be worth 10,000 now even in scrap condition. tragic
Proper dust men 👍
Early 70s, I was fully expecting to see the Shelvoke & Drury Revopaks in operation, but it makes sense they had competing trucks of a different design. This one I'm not familiar with, we don't have such a compacting mechanism used here in the US. The closest truck I can think of that we commonly had was the Heil Collectomatic, except in this case, the hopper appears smaller.
No different coloured wheelie bins back then!
cambs 01
yeah!!.... Or people
thats right i went there be-at-ches
Cant say coloured youll get life with this cunting government
2021: ‘ahh no we can’t take that mate, your wheelie bin is too heavy’
Lids open mate, cannot take it.
we used to live in a block of flats in Southampton & love to watch the binmen emptying the paladins I would follow em all round the estate on my bike fascinated by the way the bin lorry worked
Mike Price I also used to go round on a bike upto 2010 when I was 18 I started loading 9 years on I'm a rcv driver since I was a kid I've been obsessed with refuse collection vehicles
@@robinsonm08 you still making vids for you tube ?
dennisphoenix1 no haven't for a long time .Do you work on bins
@@robinsonm08 no I don't but have a similar fascination for heavy trucks . I got a licence to drive trucks but don't use it now .
Every thing seemed so simple back then he makes it sound like we need holes filling up with rubbish 😢😴🚛
thats the diffrence between now and back then. look how thay talk back then about motorways, like there a thing of wounder, people used to visit the motorway services and have there photo take standing outside it, everything was a surlution of brillance, nothing was a negative, there was a positive perception about how things were dealt with and the super market consumer life was a thing to be celebrated. now the motorways are blocked no matter how big thay make them, plasitc is the poison of the earth, the rubbish problem is becoming the same of mountains, polution and swerage are an ever increasing poison, back then all these things was all an asaw to are problems. now all these ansaws are the problems. lol
@@stevegreen9460 Things have gone backwards a lot
So we created one, we named it London.
@@stevegreen9460 What the actual shitting fuck are you on about? "Asaw"? "Ansaw"? Did you go to school?
I’ve got neighbours that just throw all their unwanted crap in the front garden!
Anything worth ebaying? 😝
Rob Flood Broken washing machine,piss stained mattress and some other odds and ends!
Get a better job & move then
@@peterherrington3300 It’s not as easy as that Peter,and you know it
After the claw grabs the delivery van, you can spot a VW Type 2 Bus in the pile 😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😭😭😭😭😭😭
Can't get over how openly camp the presenter was for the era this was made.
The narrator sitting in that chair was just like a Monty Python sketch.. The rest was just rubbish....
And now for something completely different.
richards9407 😂😂😂
Monty Python 😡that rubbish
Sounded like some stuck up condescending twat from the the middle classes.
I love this geezers dramatic pauses 😂
No sorting out there all in one crusher the traffic controller sat just to push a button hahahaha wow what a job
Sad seeing all those old cars and vans crushed, be worth a fortune now
Anyone else get a strange kind of pleasure, watching things getting crushed?
Drinking game! Every time he says 'refuse' take a shot 😄
7:30 - That van looks like it belonged to a milkman during the 50s or 60s. Very authentic stuff right here!
The depth of those “vaults” is astonishing...very high tech for 72 I think...🏴👍
Like I said we gone backward
I was half expecting something to go horribly wrong in there, and International Rescue to have to swoop in and save the day.
Maybe the crane gantry failing, and the crane operator struggling to stay in the glass cab or something? I’m sure Gerry Anderson’s team would have been inspired to produce one hell of an episode of Thunderbirds if they’d seen that place.
Glasgow had refuse plants with incinerators making gas and electricity that were twenty years old in the 1950s.
The Edmonton facility would have been fairly new then, so it would have been state of the art.
Very good programme.
Thank you Mr Chomondly-Walker!
During the 80s I can remember seeing aluminium pots and pans hanging off the bin lorries for the bin men to weigh in. 🇬🇧
Can't even take scrap metal now days we make a mint on scrap metal and Hoover's etc
I used to love watching that crushing machine and the dustmen when I was a kid,,, they used to let me throw bits in too, which was great
Dustbin, what a quant name for a vessel containing rotting food scraps and nappies.
Lol at the "clean the gases" no doubt had a helping hand in the scorching weather we've had this summer. Every cloud ☁️ ☺️
That split screen VW Camper van at 8.15 would be worth a fortune now ! 🙃
1:58 I bet they've built 'Luxury apartments' on that now!
I think it is still there but probably changed significantly-assuming its Edmonton having said that if it is just to the south of it is a massive new development just starting on former industrial land.
The good thing about where I live is the garbage truck picks up the container with a robotic arm and no one looks inside. You can put anything in there. lol.
That dustcart @0:10 looks so cool!
Yes indeed bring back 1972 eh. Most of these poor fellows had to retire in their mid 40’s or even earlier due to crippling back injuries and a host of other musculoskeletal disorders humping our crap around. Still, at least we got our bins emptied.
Blah blah blah
now civil servants retire with mental illness.
What that filmed on a Sunday? Because there is no way 700 loads per day passed through at that rate.
He says 2000 tons per day , more like 6 or 7 tons per wagon load so less loads , less wagons
Yeah it looks like a very long process and the grabber that picks the rubbish up is painfully slow.
@@Everything_Evan my first thought was, why not straight onto a, conveyer belt. Seems a long winded way of doing things
They were on yet another strike.
One thing that struck me......a world without vehicle reversing alarms!
Yes and did you notice the pile of dead bodies of people hit by them, no me neither !
I had no idea that recycling was done like that back in the seventies
I thought that just a recent thing
Ist schon interessant so etwas Altes zu sehen auch wenn es Aus England stammt danke dafür!
Martin Puhl I agree. Very interesting indeed 👍🏻
I really miss Thames TV. So much comedy. Of course I realize 'funny' comedy is also long gone.
I love seeing old footage
When I was a child in the early 1970s, living in Northern Ireland, refuse trucks were called dust carts or bin lorries and the rubbish was loaded into the sides under a 'roll top' bread bin type door.
The Edmonton Incinerator is owned by a company called LondonWaste Ltd. Its part of the NLWA-North London Waste Authority which includes the London Boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Hackney, Islington, Waltham Forest. Also Broxbourne from Hertfordshire tip there as i used to work for them and tip there. They do open days and tours on Fridays. Hope this helps. I have been in the waste industry for 20 years if you require any other information.
I haven’t been there since 1999 but I was surprised I recognised the place so easily. Hadn’t changed that much.
Used to drive a truck in, get weighed, dump it all in that big pit then back up to the weigh bridge. Got charged the difference.
Hi Stephen thanks for your reply and information I was there again to see it about two weeks ago still hasn't changed but they are knocking it down shortly as they are about to rebuild a larger and modern energy from waste plant on the same site. Who did you drive for if you don't mind me asking?
love the dust bin men at our house.
Back when they used to walk into your garden and carry the bin on their shoulders to the lorry.
Our bin men wont pick up rubbish if to heavy, won't collect the cardboard if it's not in the recycling bag, then will throw the empty bags and food waste bins all over the place when done.
Don't blame them, they all have to have lifting courses etc and then sign papers to say they understand. No pay (only SSP) if you're off work. Crews have gone down to 2 (or 1 even) plus driver from a 5 man crew. Strict instructions to only go into properties on an Assisted Collection. Don't shoot the messenger is what I'm saying.
This is the Proler Cohen scrap recycling plant at a Willesden. Still operating today as European Metal Recycling (EMR).
So soothing
Classic motors now, the VW van on the ground 😢. Also the leyland van ,
Proper dustbin men collecting, here are some sweets for Xmas that was what a lot of people did when I was a kid for the dustman.
Looks like scenes from a James Bond film. Following that bin truck to a site in North London. Never seen the surrounding area to try to find exactly where, very James Bond like. Seeing that control room to tell where the drivers should go, looks like a room from a hidden base. Seeing the shifty scenes where my waste is going and being handled.
Probably been demolished and turned into a ' development opportunity' ?
It’s in Edmonton near the river lee. Still there today.
@@Bradonomous ahhh, that's close to me. I'm in Ealing. I think I should go and take a look.
YIKES @ 8:09: VW T1 with ultra-rare roof hatch!
8:20 Pieces of metal are 'grabbed' from a cold lorry. The lorry almost got lifted by the grabber. Amazing how this was made in 1972 and just 27 years after World War Two but because its on colour video film and has a hi-fidelity audio track. It still feels 'modern'
I felt modern as a teenager in '72.
When this country had proper bin men.
When this country had proper everything
Whats wrong with todays bin men?
Imagine being bothered about the quality of your bin men. As long as they do their job then why care how they do their job. Also, i don’t think having them ruin their health would be a measurement for how proper binmen they are 🤦🏻♂️
Impeccable presentation ! (where's it all gone ?)
This is cool!
It looks so much more advanced than today.
HOLY SMOKE we use brand new DENNIS TRUCKS here in Australia for garbage.... and they're used for NOTHING ELSE. I believe that they're built with dual sided controls in the factory. Left and right hand drive.
Good old days..when you had one bin and dustmen took whatever rubbish was put out.
I love the old huge cranes
When Britain was great
I was a conveyor belt in England in 1972 and I can confirm this
@@mjstefansson7466
I was Reginald Perrin's condom... weird times. I can still taste the Cinzano even now.
@@skylined5534 🤣🤣
Back in the good old days in the UK when you paid your taxes and they emptied your bins once a week. And emptied them into the back of their vehicle, to boot, not all over the road.
Back in the day when they actually worked for their money