When I was a kid I wanted to be a dustman, I thought they only worked on a Thursday morning

Just about the time of this programme, at 16, I got a holiday job on the bins in Winchester. I was a naive posh boy but the blokes were great to me (as long as you pulled your weight!) and it was the beginning of my realisation that education, qualifications and position are not indicators of intelligence or human value - rather the opposite in my opinion, judging by the quality (lack of) of those who run the world!. I really enjoyed that summer and going back to school seemed such a waste of time that I was gone within weeks, to follow my own erratic path in life.

I'm a binman here in northern Ireland not a shame of it and proud to be a binman

Fascinating. I love these old programs to get a glimpse into the UK during the past. Honestly things aren’t that different from Philadelphia where I grew up. Seems like things were so much simpler back then when I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s

And the van was a British Leyland J4 if anybody's interested

I no longer own a TV, but I wish there were factual programmes like this made today.

brilliant video,absolutely gobsmacked that even as far back as 1972 when I was 11,they were able to recycle so much of the scrap in what appears a very efficient and clean way-brilliant stuff who dug this video up

and the binmen rode on the back of the lorry.they even expected a tip at xmas..i loved my childhood in the 60,s /70,s

When I was a kid in the 1970s there lived a rough family on the main road. I went to school with one of the sons. The old man was a bin man doing our estate. When his lorry turned onto the main road he would trot into his house and eat a cooked breakfast his missus had done for him. She was a big old bruiser and took over his job of emptying the bins until he'd had his meal then they'd swap again with the lorry at the opposite end of the road. It was just accepted. I think back with incredulity to some of the things that went on.

You don’t see tea chests these day. Great for packing when moving house.

I miss the sound of those old metal bins in the early morning. So evocative of our old world.

So simple back then Now we have a HUGE bin lorry , loads of flashing lights , beeping noises , high visibility jackets , health and safety training , garden full of different coloured wheelie bins

We had a bin for ashes from our coal fire, when full it was bloody heavy, the binman would come down the passage, round the back of the house, and hump it up on his back no bother, briing it back empty and shut the gate on his way out. Proper tough job back then.

If only all of our industries were as efficient as this. That scrap van was less than ten years old then !!

Cars seen as junk then might be highly collectible now!

The most obvious thing here is that we produced much less waste. Today it’s down to packaging being the reason there is so much waste.

Thank you for posting this gem! What an insightful and wonderfully nostalgic vision in to something that's taken for granted by the masses. I remember when the bin men used to lug the heavy metal bins with those black rubber lids from the garden to the truck, on their backs, toss the rubbish in and put the bins back before jumping on to the back of the truck to move on down the street. If you were a bin man you were a proper man back then! So much respect to our Bin folk who work hard day in day out. And thank you again for posting this awesome video! 👌

Good to see documentaries like this are being recycled.

The traffic controller!😉 this is a wonderful snapshot in time.

I love these old videos!

I love these 1970s documentaries can we see more memories of the past

Everything seemed better back then

My old mans a dustman those were the days sadly this countrys FUKKED

Back in the days when the dustmen took anything; old bikes, washing machines, garden waste etc, I remember 'em chucking a large glass aquarium tank into the bin lorry & cheering when it got crunched.

The car scrapyard was George Cohen in Willesden, gone now I should think. It was massive 8 acre site and in the early seventies they'd pay about £3 for a scrap car. They drained the fluids, removed the wheels and dropped the rest into the shredder which was actually a kind of hammer mill that smashed a car into small pieces.

For 1972 this was pretty advanced and modern ! - here in 2022 some 50 years later I am sure they still do the same thing with all the unwanted rubbish but on a larger scale !

Probably lots of dumped porn magazines would have been “recycled” before ending up in the furnace.

Metal dustbins . And absolutely everything went into the one bin from glass to potato peelings to dead cats . Then all got mostly sent to landfill .

Back in the days when the binman would walk into your back garden and take your bin to the waggon and then put the bin back in your garden for you, now they wont move your wheelie bin if the top is slightly open or its pointing in the wrong direction or not close enough to the kurb :D

Split screen VW campervan at 8:16, worth its weight in gold today.

I go to this verry same tip now as a dust cart driver and the ramp and the bays all still look the same just more dirty 😅

The reporter and chaired monologue is absolutely fantastic.😉

This has the feel of a Monte Python movie.

Lovely years....l remember them well. In those days the binman would take your bin right up to your back door, and close the drive gate.....today they leave them blocking pavements, and they end up sometimes in the road. I recall wearing those ultra baggy trousers, with thick crepe soled shoes, and penny round shirts. I can remember going on a coach trip in the early 60s as a kid: and having a packet of crisps with a little bag of salt inside....which you opened, and sprinkled over the crisps. Clothes seemed better in those days......today a lot, irrespective of brand, is made overseas..and it shows in the quality. No food banks, no beggars, no cannabis wafting out of cars, no dingys arriving on beaches. Politicians seemed more up to the job, and they owned combs and used them. City centres were heaving with people, and it was a novelty to see an empty shop. Today when l have visited various city centres: there always seems to be scruffs having an argument in the street, and shouting and swearing. There seems to be more people today on sickness benefits, because they have a gambling or drink or drug problem.....wheras decades ago you had to be at deaths door before they let you claim that. Today the financially incompetent politicians place thousands of able people on these benefits, then import third world migrants. Britain most certainly......is not what it was.

In them days a lot of rubbish as it was called then, waste now, would be chucked on the fire at home, most of the bins contained ashes.

Even those old tea chests be worth money these days

No one will ever know how well this film would have done at the Cannes film festival.

Keep looking for Regan to pop up on the screen to rouse the owner for information on a BLAG

No way! Just saw a vw type 1 on the pile! 😧

What a brilliant little film. Thanks for uploading... as a kid in north wales i remember the days that the binman used to come into the garden to collect the bin and then leave you a new bag , we only ever needed one a week them days ! Remember my day giving them a pound note to chuck a sofa in there 😂.. nowadays on the Wirral not only do you have to put your designated bin on the side of the road you also have to make sure its the right way round. Not joking! They wont collect if the handles are pointing the wrong way round 😮

The narrator sitting in that chair was just like a Monty Python sketch.. The rest was just rubbish....

I never thought I'd see another of those blue cabbed dustbin lorries. I am literally 4 years old again.

"Loaded into railway wagons and taken to The Midlands... And frankly who cares what happens to it after that provided it's no longer in the Home Counties."

Manually lifted metal bins. They sometimes used to "hook" them above their hip. Then in 10 years, they had those hops written off and often ended up on a wheelchair.

No different coloured wheelie bins back then!

Proper dust men 👍

Every thing seemed so simple back then he makes it sound like we need holes filling up with rubbish 😢😴🚛

Back in the good old days in the UK when you paid your taxes and they emptied your bins once a week. And emptied them into the back of their vehicle, to boot, not all over the road.

The depth of the drop behind bin #9.... They must have anticipated how much rubbish per day would be heading their way in the future?

I’ve got neighbours that just throw all their unwanted crap in the front garden!

Early 70s, I was fully expecting to see the Shelvoke & Drury Revopaks in operation, but it makes sense they had competing trucks of a different design. This one I'm not familiar with, we don't have such a compacting mechanism used here in the US. The closest truck I can think of that we commonly had was the Heil Collectomatic, except in this case, the hopper appears smaller.

we used to live in a block of flats in Southampton & love to watch the binmen emptying the paladins I would follow em all round the estate on my bike fascinated by the way the bin lorry worked

Anyone else get a strange kind of pleasure, watching things getting crushed?

2021: ‘ahh no we can’t take that mate, your wheelie bin is too heavy’

What that filmed on a Sunday? Because there is no way 700 loads per day passed through at that rate.

No sorting out there all in one crusher the traffic controller sat just to push a button hahahaha wow what a job

After the claw grabs the delivery van, you can spot a VW Type 2 Bus in the pile 😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😥😭😭😭😭😭😭

The depth of those “vaults” is astonishing...very high tech for 72 I think...🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿👍

Sad seeing all those old cars and vans crushed, be worth a fortune now

Drinking game! Every time he says 'refuse' take a shot 😄

When Britain was great

7:30 - That van looks like it belonged to a milkman during the 50s or 60s. Very authentic stuff right here!

When this country had proper bin men.

Yes indeed bring back 1972 eh. Most of these poor fellows had to retire in their mid 40’s or even earlier due to crippling back injuries and a host of other musculoskeletal disorders humping our crap around. Still, at least we got our bins emptied.

Can't get over how openly camp the presenter was for the era this was made.

During the 80s I can remember seeing aluminium pots and pans hanging off the bin lorries for the bin men to weigh in. 🇬🇧

never seen that particular model of trash compactor before. We'd had loads of different contraptions on bin vans around here, but nothing like that. But, speaking of incinerators, here in Copenhagen our latest one doubles as ski slope. Only incinerator in the world that's a tourist destination

Dustbin, what a quant name for a vessel containing rotting food scraps and nappies.

Might binmen deal with the current London mayor?

Back in the day when they actually worked for their money

Ist schon interessant so etwas Altes zu sehen auch wenn es Aus England stammt danke dafür!

1:58 I bet they've built 'Luxury apartments' on that now!

One thing that struck me......a world without vehicle reversing alarms!

I really miss Thames TV. So much comedy. Of course I realize 'funny' comedy is also long gone.

That split screen VW Camper van at 8.15 would be worth a fortune now ! 🙃

Awesome viewing. Thank you for uploading.

Looks like scenes from a James Bond film. Following that bin truck to a site in North London. Never seen the surrounding area to try to find exactly where, very James Bond like. Seeing that control room to tell where the drivers should go, looks like a room from a hidden base. Seeing the shifty scenes where my waste is going and being handled.

Lol at the "clean the gases" no doubt had a helping hand in the scorching weather we've had this summer. Every cloud ☁️ ☺️

I love this geezers dramatic pauses 😂

Classic motors now, the VW van on the ground 😢. Also the leyland van , Proper dustbin men collecting, here are some sweets for Xmas that was what a lot of people did when I was a kid for the dustman.

Very good programme.

Brilliant video. Thank you for sharing. Well done.

Back when they used to walk into your garden and carry the bin on their shoulders to the lorry. Our bin men wont pick up rubbish if to heavy, won't collect the cardboard if it's not in the recycling bag, then will throw the empty bags and food waste bins all over the place when done.

I used to love watching that crushing machine and the dustmen when I was a kid,,, they used to let me throw bits in too, which was great

Good old days..when you had one bin and dustmen took whatever rubbish was put out.

I had no idea that recycling was done like that back in the seventies I thought that just a recent thing

Is the complex still there?

Deliberate ITV in-joke at 01:14?

1:28 Thames TV shows a box with rival STV logo getting crushed in a bin lorry. Proof that London hates Scotland

8:20 Pieces of metal are 'grabbed' from a cold lorry. The lorry almost got lifted by the grabber. Amazing how this was made in 1972 and just 27 years after World War Two but because its on colour video film and has a hi-fidelity audio track. It still feels 'modern'

This is the Proler Cohen scrap recycling plant at a Willesden. Still operating today as European Metal Recycling (EMR).

That dustcart @0:10 looks so cool!

Those tea chests would fetch £75 each in Chorlton today easily.

The Edmonton Incinerator is owned by a company called LondonWaste Ltd. Its part of the NLWA-North London Waste Authority which includes the London Boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey, Hackney, Islington, Waltham Forest. Also Broxbourne from Hertfordshire tip there as i used to work for them and tip there. They do open days and tours on Fridays. Hope this helps. I have been in the waste industry for 20 years if you require any other information.

Recycling before the word was trendy .

I used to give my bin men a Christmas tip, right up until this year! I was having some decorating done, they didn’t empty my bin but put a sticker on saying “building waste” sorry love, but decorating isn’t the same as building and that £20 you were looking forward too for Christmas , well that evaporated when I had to unlock ad my wheelie bin, load up the back of my mini and drive to the tip.

HOLY SMOKE we use brand new DENNIS TRUCKS here in Australia for garbage.... and they're used for NOTHING ELSE. I believe that they're built with dual sided controls in the factory. Left and right hand drive.

Imagine working in that crane with the grabbing arm, that guy must have been inhaling dangerous levels of methane and other nasty gases/particles. I wonder if they had explosions too.

YIKES @ 8:09: VW T1 with ultra-rare roof hatch!

Things did seem simpler back then with no big supper markets and hardly any rubbish. I wonder if that rubbish processing plant in London is still there.