Junk Hunters Puts the Romance into Recycling : Fancy a Rubbish Valentines Experience?
This Valentine’s day London based waste removal firm, Junk Hunters is offering a ‘Rubbish Waste Experience’ as an alternative to the more traditional dinner for two.
Available at numerous locations in the UK – the ‘lucky receiver’ will experience a full day of waste collecting and processing with one of Junk Hunter’s two man refuse collection crews and will be shown how much can be recycled and reused.
What’s more they will be invited to select an item of junk they have collected to take home as a souvenir of the day - and organisers say we throw away plenty of valuables including laptops, cameras and even first edition classic books.
The company first offered the £150 experience day as a Christmas gift package and said it was so pleased with the response that it is now making it available to love birds looking for something a little different for their partner on Valentine’s Day.
Participants will experience a full day of waste collecting and processing with one of Junk Hunter’s two man refuse collection crews and will be shown how much can be recycled and reused.
The day starts early with the presentation of a uniform at 6am followed by a short training session before heading out on the truck to make collections.
Typically, these include house clearances, private collections of bulky items such as unwanted sofas and white goods, and pick-ups of unneeded building materials from construction sites.
Rubbish Experience Day participants are expected to roll their sleeves up and muck in with the collections and the company makes it quite clear that the day is more than just an opportunity to observe.
Junk Hunters said that it saves thousands of tonnes of discarded items from ending up in landfill every year and currently recycle 75% of all collections, which it is aiming to improve to 80%.
The Ideas Man
The package was thought up by Junk Hunters founder Harsha Rathnayake who came to the UK from Sri Lanka to study engineering at Kingston University.
He was stunned to see how much British people throw away and discard and after adding an MBA to his MSc he launched his junk collection business in London in 2008.
Since then he has grown the company to more than £1 million turnover and is currently franchising Junk Hunters across the UK.
“Growing up in Sri Lanka I had an awareness of environmental issues and when I moved to London I was shocked by how much people threw away here,” he said. “It is a much more consume and discard culture here and I couldn’t believe how much good stuff was being put into landfill. As my interest developed I vowed to do what I could to minimise the problem.”
Rathnayake added that his team often found valuable items amongst the junk that people throw away.
“The Rubbish Experience allows anyone to come along and see exactly how we do it. They can take part in both collections and processing so they can see for themselves just how much junk can be reused,” he continued.
“I’ve had Apple laptops, fully working TVs, cameras and other electricals, furniture in great condition, even first edition Charles Dicken’s novels. It certainly seems to be true that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” concluded Rathnayake.
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