Smiles all round at Sunderland recycling operation

May 22 2009 By Alastair Gilmour, The Journal

THEY SAY MUCK AND BRASS GO HAND IN HAND. ALASTAIR GILMOUR DISCOVERS PRIDE AND WASTE DO TOO

YOU can’t have one without the other. A long and happy marriage and a well-established, successful business go together. Listening to what Alex Smiles has to say on the subject not only confirms the theory, it endorses it and validates it.

He and his late wife Jane were married in 1973 at the same time as they registered the Alex Smiles Limited name and there’s no doubt in his mind that the two events were so intertwined they could never be rent asunder.

“We grew as a couple and grew as a company,” says Alex. “Everything blossomed, it was very much aman/woman team –we made it work.”

Now the Sunderland operation is involved in materials recycling and transfer, bulk waste movement, hazardous waste, skip hire, tipper hire, plant hire and muck-shift – a full range of “dirty” jobs that developed out of heaps of scrap. Its nine-acre Deptford Road site on the banks of the RiverWear is a huge base for every form of waste material imaginable to be dumped, sorted, sifted, dusted down and graded before being parcelled up and recycled or trunked off to landfill.

Bulldozers, forklifts and conveyors scoop and heave continuously amongst enormous piles of waste and a background of noise, stink and dust, dust, dust. A grab, hovering like a praying mantis, snuffles through the debris and teases out a length of metal, shaking the loose debris free before it swings and drops into its correct skip. The movement is so precise and accurate that you’d bet the operator could pick up an egg with its scissoring jaws.

Everything is separated into mounds of metal, plastic, wood, paper and rubble then graded further into the likes of clear plastic, coloured plastic, rigid plastic, cabling and polythene for recycling in the UK or abroad – which means China or India – but largely dependent on where it came from in the first place.

Managing director Stuart Smiles says: “When you think about it, all imported stuff comes packed in cardboard and plastic, so it’s a case of where do you need it most – the country where the goods were made.”

Stuart is one of Alex and Jane’s sons – the other, John, is behind the cabin of another grab, coaxing the arm to prance like a dancer in a modern ballet. The brothers felt there was a certain inevitability about working in the family firm although Stuart first flexed his muscles with a degree in computer sciences before taking up his role in 2006. There’s no doubt, though, that looking at something from a different perspective is a distinct advantage.

“We have a huge continuous investment in plant and manpower,” he says. “That bulldozer for example cost £110,000. We have 100 of a workforce and took on 12 people in March and a few more since. We actually need more staff to do what we want to do. Whatever you do, you find there’s always more to be done.”

A conveyor belt rumbles along with eight operators side by side picking waste out of what hasn’t already been separated. Each piece is dropped into a bottomless hopper into a bay down on ground level.

“There’s a lot of the job that just has to be done manually,” says Stuart. “We get it sorted as best we can first – if you can do something with it you take it off, the rest goes to landfill. We’re currently investigating what can be reused.

“Legislation is always a problem, in some places you can plan but sometimes it just comes out of the blue. Nobody wants to pay landfill tax and the complexities are getting worse – that said, it’s the same for everybody.”

Another frustration arrives with a tipper load reversing into the enormous shed. Its contents should have been separated at
source, but they’re not. But within minutes the pile will have started its journey along the highly impressive £1m series of conveyors, chutes and hoppers on the recycling and transfer station.