Brexit seems like a distant dream.....

...that we have woken up from and surfaced into something far more menacing.

Coronavirus/COVID 19 is a worldwide problem that none of us have ever seen before.

Business has its ups and downs but this is real life shutdown for many.

In my last blog I predicted green shoots for 2020, and, I believe that they started to arrive. Things were on the up, everyone was positive in business, then the news started to come from Wuhan.

At first it was just another disease on the other side of the world. Now within 6 weeks our country is in lockdown. This has the potential for huge loss of life and an economic disease that could last much longer than the pandemic. At Green Recycling we are classed as essential workers, essential because if we do not go out and collect the waste then we will have waste mounting up, vermin and disease on our streets. We have had lots of thanks and appreciation from our customers, hospitals, old people's homes and schools, who still need the rubbish to be collected.

Its times like this that makes me really proud of our staff who are just getting on with it. We are still busy to date because some of the hospitals and food service customers are busier than ever.

The amount of domestic waste will also increase dramatically as everyone is at home. We have been doing some contingency planning with a local council to help out if needs be.

One huge tragic loss is to the hospitality industry. The pubs, clubs and resteraunts, have to close by law. This has meant that over 150 of our long term contracted customers are stopping our waste collection services. How many of these will re open ? However many it is, we will be there to carry on the service when they do open. What no-one knows, is how long the lockdown is going to last, 2 months or 6 months? Lets wait and see.

I would like to thank our materials and disposal outlets for supporting us in this difficult time and remaining open . Without a place to take our materials to sell, and, our waste to dispose of we would be really in trouble.

Currently the materials prices are steady with some good news on Cardboard (OCC) which was on its knees at £0 per ton at Christmas. This is now back to a still bad but much better £25 per ton.

Paper grades, mixed, newspaper and magazines and white paper is really in the duldrums. Will the Coronavirus lead to panic buying of materials and therefore higher prices over Easter. ? Lets hope that we do see some steady increases, but what our Industry needs more than ever is strong stable prices for recycled materials.

The wheels are still turning on our transport fleet. We are in the strange position that for the first time in our 20 year history, we cannot MOT trucks!!! The MOT test centres have closed because of the Coronavirus. We are still having our trucks regularly serviced and inspected, its more important than ever that we have safe reliable trucks (Thanks to Truckeast Witham for keeping us on the road with our fleet of Scanias) .

I believe that it will get quieter over the next month as more businesses close down, and a lot is going to change in the world. We are going to keep our heads down, keep working the best we can and carry on recycling.

All the best, keep your friends and families safe, Robert.