By Gerald Dorrington on Tuesday, April 13, 2004 - 09:06 am:

We must recognise that the organisation of the personnel employed to collect refuse (the crew of the collection vehicle) in Europe is very much different to the situation in South Africa.

In the Netherlands, the authorities/unions have placed a limit on the number of bins that a person may handle in one shift, some years ago already. If they use a full-time driver in the cab, and two "runners" behind the traditional rear-loader vehicle, the runners reach their imposed limit within a few hours. Increasing the number of runners on the vehicle is not an option because of the space available in the cab (they don't have separate "crew cabs") and because of the cost of labour in that expensive part of the world.

Their solution was to employ a team of three people on the vehicle who could both drive and run. i.e. Each person would spend some time running and some time driving. However, this situation is not entirely satisfactory for the personnel in terms of career development.

Previously, a runner could aspire to being promoted to a driver's position, and not have to handle dirty bins again. Now, even though he is a driver, he has to spend two-thirds of his time running behind the dirty truck.

Thus, one can understand that all the vehicle personnel, are pushing to have a situation where they do not have to leave the cab. This implies "remote-reach" side-loaders.

The "operator/runner serviced" side-loaders are mostly used for 4-wheel containers where personnel are in any case used outside the vehicle to move them away from alleys and walls, and to put them back again.

The South African situation, where waste collection is a job creator, is still far from being subjected to the same labour forces as in Europe.