Cory Environmental and Onyx UK – The Chronicles of Waste

For ten years between 1990 and 2000 I worked in the private sector in the waste management industry and I have some rather good memories of that time.

When I say waste management to be more accurate I suppose I should say waste mismanagement because the two companies that I worked for were completely hopeless.

These are the complete chronicles of incompetence, extravagance and waste.

Cory Environmental, Blunders and Bodger

The Tendering process

First Weekend as a Refuse Collection Contract Manager

Disorganising the Work

Cory Environmental at Southend on Sea

Onyx UK

An Inappropriate Visit to The Moulin Rouge

Onyx UK and the Dog Poo Solution

The Royal Ascot Clear Up Fiasco

An Unexpected Travel Opportunity

Only one chapter left to go about how I returned to employment in the public sector and got my own back and that will be posted soon.

Cory Environmental, (dis)Organising the Work

“Compulsory competitive tendering was introduced by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s to force councils to outsource or privatise services.  Everything was up for sale from NHS cleaning and catering, to road maintenance to refuse.  The plan was based on cost and profit, not providing a service, making a profit means slashing the service and worsening workers’ terms and conditions.”    The Socialist Worker

So, contract awarded, mission accomplished, winning the work had been a piece of cake and hacking off the entire work force a relatively straight forward process that usually took only a couple of hours at a work force meeting but now came the really tricky part when someone had to plan the work.

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Cory Environmental, the Tendering Process

Blunders and Bodger carry out a thorough review of a proposed tender submission!

Cory Environmental was rather like working for the waste collection equivalent of the keystone cops.  I mentioned before that my opportunity to work for the Company was almost entirely due to their incompetence at preparing a realistic tender and they were certain to win the work in the first place because the always managed to under price the bid.  In the 1980s and 1990s because Margaret Thatcher thought that the private sector was, by definition, much more competent and efficient in these matters than the public sector, local authorities were required to offer certain services for open competition.

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Onyx UK, The First French Invasion in a Thousand Years

Onyx UK no longer exists as such and has been renamed Veolia Environmental Services (sounds impressive doesn’t it?) and its website claims that it ‘currently delivers refuse collection services to around five million residents in the UK… Working with Veolia Environmental Services means Local Authorities can be assured of receiving an efficient, reliable and responsive service.’  Well, things must have changed dramatically there as well because they turned out to be just as hopeless as Cory Environmental.

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Cory Environmental, Southend on Sea

Cory Environmental started out in 1896 as William Cory and Son Ltd, transporting coal into London on the River Thames.  Coal was the lifeblood of the city and after they had made a fortune in the first thirty years they diversified and began to transport waste using the city’s waterways.  In the 1980s however the company grew weary of the union riddled coal and oil distribution business and these services were sold, and the business decided to expand into and concentrate upon waste management.

In 1990 the company was renamed Cory Environmental and it appointed Blunders and Bodger to run the municipal division.

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Cory Environmental, Blunders and Bodger

“Margaret Thatcher wasn’t just callously indifferent to the suffering of those she made jobless or snubbed.  (She) set out to destroy entire industries in an appalling act of political and social vandalism…. When she marched into Number 10, it wasn’t bad – it was horrible, absolutely terrible.”                         Daily Mirror Editorial

I have never been especially politically aware so when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 I was completely oblivious to the potential impact that the Tory policy of privatisation could have on me directly.  The first Conservative term of office came and went without any real upheaval but then after her second election victory in 1983 the pace of destruction of public sector services began to increase and eventually in 1989 I became a victim of the Thatcher axe and lost my job in local government as services were handed over to the private sector.

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