This week, we are interviewing Brendan O’Shea, the founder and Managing Director of Just Clear UK in London. Brendan runs an Eco-friendly and fresh thinking ‘House clearance’ company that can boast industry high recycling rates.
Hi Brendan, what does your business offer that other businesses in the same sector do not?
There are a number of elements that differ to others in terms of what we offer. The main difference being we put ourselves out as being the best house clearance service there is and the most responsible in terms of recycling and reusing items.
We separate all materials to ensure they are recycled and reused accordingly.
This results in a great service for our clients, via their reports, which are send after we carry out the clearance. This industry was crying out for transparency and we managed to provide an alternative to this with our reporting. Being fully accredited and insured also provides us with a unique advantage and scope compared to others. An example of this would being accredited by RICS whereby we can value contents that have a commercial value for clients looking sell items in a transparent way.
How do you conduct an Eco-friendly disposal of junk?
We do this by using recycling yards that have a real system for recycling, like Plastic expert. An example of this would be facilities where they have an area for metal, another area for wood, plastic and so on. This way, we can trace our recycling figures in line with our corporate social responsibility.
Your business saved 8,845 tonnes of junk from going to landfill in 2012, are these figures rising?
In 2013, this increased to 12,781 tonne and this continues to rise. This is achieved by using recycling facilities that recycle rather than landfill and sorting our own recycling at our yards around the UK.
An 89% landfill avoidance is brilliant, but what challenges do you face in increasing this figure?
We are very proud of this figure and yes there will always be challenges to maintain and even increase this figure, such as training staff, education and pace of new technology for recycling. However, there seems to be a positive shift in companies taking on recycling initiatives, more awareness around CSR, and more niche recycling firms popping up, which is a breath of fresh air to the industry. An example of this would be a new machine in the UK specially designed to recycle mattresses, which is something that could not be done prior to this. This is one of the key elements to increasing our figure.
Once the junk is collected from homes or offices, what is your recycling process?
During the loading / clueing process, we tend to load in a way whereby each material is separated. Eg. wood first, then metal, then odd items. The process usually entails the team driving to a local recycling centre to drop materials in separate piles for recycling and if there is anything they can reuse, like a desk, a chair etc, they pop it down the local charity shop, for it to go to some good use elsewhere. This is another form of recycling!
Brendan stresses that educating his staff about recycling is key to his business.
Recent Interviews:
‘High Recycling and Low Litter – With Waste Campaigner Lisa Wriley
Snowboards to Longboards – With Designer Johannes LDC Guerreiro
Eradicating Plastic Bags – With SAS Director Andy Cummins
