Sometimes the oddest things happen when you least expect them. Today I found myself giving an impromptu tour of the Southern Amenity Site.
I’ve been very vocal about the failings of the Western Civic Amenity Site. In my view, it hasn’t been run productively for quite some time. It seems to have operated with one overriding goal: not to spend any money. On that front, they succeeded. But if the aim was efficiency, they failed 10 times over.
Can a waste site make money? Can waste save you money? Can a subsidy be super-efficient? The short answer to all of these questions is yes.
That’s exactly what I saw at the Southern Amenity Site today. From recycling schemes to composting, from breaking down WEE to sending just a single skip to landfill, everything was geared toward value creation. Inert rubble is transformed into concrete bollards. Every item that can be recycled is put to use in generating revenue from old phones to reusing walking sticks. (Nobles can repurpose them)
We’ve long known that phones contain many metals, some of which are now skyrocketing in value across the world. The Southern site is tapping into that reality. Meanwhile, the West has a lot of work to do.
We should be excited. It is sheer nonsense to suggest that we cannot have outstanding services at a reasonable cost.
As I was shown around, I cobbled together some video clips to give a taste of how this is done in practice. The Southern Amenity Site demonstrates that excellence and efficiency are not mutually exclusive, they can go hand in hand.