The rubbish gift: an offer you can’t refuse

This might sound like a rubbish idea – but how would you like to spend the day collecting waste in the heart of London?

In what could be a world first, the recycling firm London Junk is offering high flyers and chief executives the chance to roll up their sleeves and rummage around the capital’s wheelie bins – and pay for the privilege.

And while it might not have the allure of a trip to Brands Hatch or whiskey tasting in the Highlands, but the £300 Waste Disposal Gift Day promises to be a Christmas experience like no other.

‘We are hoping our Waste Disposal Gift Day will be both an interesting and educational experience,’ said company chief executive, Harsha Rathnayake.

‘It’s all too easy to throw things away without a second thought about where it ends up.’

The public’s general confusion about what can and cannot be recycled has been fairly well documented.

Environment Journal reported in September about a survey by Viridor, which showed UK households are keen to recycle more, but half of respondents still don’t know which bin to put their recycling in.

The day will start at 6am at the company’s headquarters in North London, where you will be given a 20-minute training, before being issued with your very own London Junk uniform.

Shortly after 6.45am, you will be hitting the road with a two-man crew and on your way to the first call of the day.

‘By coming along with one of our crews people can learn an awful lot about how waste is managed and they can see for themselves the efforts taken to ensure around 80% of everything we collect is recycled,’ added Mr Rathayake.

London Junk covers a wide part of the capital, from parts of Hillingdon and Hounslow in the west to Enfield and Waltham Forest on the other side, serving a mixture of commercial and domestic customers.

An eye-opening experience

Anyone taking part in the experience day could end picking up waste at a busy Soho restaurant or from a construction side in Edgware.

When your truck is full, you and the crew will return back to London Junk’s recycling centre, where you will get a crash course on recycling and salvaging junk.

There will even be an opportunity to take home a piece of rubbish as souvenir.

‘You’d be amazed at some of the stuff we find,’ said a London Junk spokesperson. ‘We’ve had valuable antiques, first edition Dickens novels, all kinds of things.

‘There are a lot of very successful people in London, who are bored with luxury and want to experience another side of life,’ added the spokesperson.

‘We are offering to show them the real London, the back streets, and the alleyways, the refuse dumps and the recycling centres.’

Before you all get too excited, it should also be pointed out that anyone taking part in the experience day will also be expected to wash down the track, before heading home with their new-found loot.

‘We’re confident that all those taking part will go home with a whole new outlook on waste management,’ added Mr Rathnayake.