Tip worker reveals the weird and wonderful stuff thrown away
James Maughan works at the Connon Bridge centre near Liskeard
Last updated 11th Feb 2023
A tip worker has revealed the weird and wonderful stuff thrown away at Cornwall’s household recycling centres.
James Maughan has previously worked as a bingo caller, a high-end watch salesman and a Royal Navy helicopter engineer.
He says it was all good training for working at one of Cornwall’s busiest Household Waste and Recycling Centres, which are run by SUEZ on behalf of Cornwall Council.
Once you’ve faced down a furious 95-year-old who’s fuming at you for failing to call her bingo numbers and worked with deadly helicopter blades, James says dealing with other people’s rubbish is easy.
James, who works at the Connon Bridge Waste and Recycling Centre near Liskeard, said: “I’m relatively new to the job. When I started, back in 2019, the household recycling centre was just ‘the tip’ to me - same as it is to most people who don’t work in waste management.
“Now I know better. It’s a great feeling when you see one person’s unwanted stuff going off to be reused by someone else who really needs it.”
“One time, I spotted a tail sticking out of the rubbish skip and thought someone had thrown their dead dog in the bin,” he says.
“I hooked it out, only to find it was a taxidermied cat - mounted on a plinth and rearing up at me hissing with its claws out.”
Another time, one of his fellow recycling centre workers spotted a “grenade” nestled in the rubbish.
“We went through all the proper procedures,” he says. “We alerted the police, evacuated the site, got the bomb squad in and turns out it was just a very realistic plastic toy.”
James says he really enjoys his job but finds it frustrating when people throw away perfectly good items that could be resold, given away, reused or recycled.
He says most people who come to the site do care about recycling but there is a minority who chuck everything in the general rubbish skip without thinking
“Last week, someone tried to bin a brand new, £100 duvet just because they’d bought the wrong size and couldn’t be bothered to return it,” he says.
“And the other day, a lady brought in an entire kitchen set – toaster, kettle, sandwich-maker, coffeemaker – all in perfect working order.
“She was chucking it because she was redecorating her kitchen and the colour was wrong.”
James and his colleagues spotted the set, were able to hook it all out of the rubbish skip and give it to St Blazey Recycle Reuse Resale CIC where they items were cleaned up and passed on to someone who needed kitchen equipment and didn’t care about colour.
“But it bothers me,” James says. “How many times do we miss good quality items being thrown in the bin?
“It’s disappointing - how much good stuff people are willing to throw away because it’s not brand new anymore and they bin it because doing that is a bit quicker and easier than selling it or giving it away.
“There are so many families out there, especially right now, who could really do with second hand stuff.”
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