Garbage removal man
Jennifer Loicht
Being in the garbage business is anything but a waste of talent.
Not surprisingly, as a garbage removal company franchisee, Richard Dutton handles some pretty smelly stuff. Among the delights Dutton has dealt with are six truck-loads of off cheese, and furniture covered in sewage. While he is usually matter-of-fact about such jobs, the eastern suburbs resident says a recent experience with a sewage-soaked home left a lot to be desired.
“It was an insurance job. A sewerage pipe blew and all the furniture, carpet and half the stuff in the house was damaged,” he says.
“We had to wear full body wetsuits and masks, and then we found needles and all sorts of things. It got to the stage where the insurance company we were contracted with refused to do the job as it became too unsafe.”
But that’s at the worst extreme of Dutton’s job. On the plus side, he loves the fact his job lets him spend time outdoors and gives him the freedom to work when he wants to. “You meet some interesting people as well, like compulsive hoarders,” Dutton says.
“One job had three levels of rubbish from floor to ceiling, all collected items, some of them dating back to the early 1970s.”
Dutton effectively gets paid to keep fit, but does need to watch his back when removing heavy items, such as the old steel pump that weighed more than 500kg and took a trio of strapping blokes an hour to move. He admits to enjoying the extra money and additional security which resulted from becoming a 1300 RUBBISH franchisee over a year ago. The company, which started in 1989, operates all over Australia.
“Being your own boss — you just can’t beat it,” Dutton says. The tertiary-educated Dutton, who studied sports journalism and marketing, used to work in TV production but it lost its allure.
Even so, if you’d asked him five years ago, when he was working in events, what he’d be doing now, he would not have predicted this. “I imagined myself still in events, but running my own business,” Dutton says.
That part, at least, is right and Dutton says the invaluable knowledge he’s gaining may lead him to start a different company in the future. For now, he reckons he’s on a good wicket with this one, which picks up unwanted items, loads them and sweeps up afterwards. “We’re fast, efficient and clean,” he says.
By Jennifer Loicht, The Daily Telegraph, February 14, 2007.
