Female waste firm owner defies 'man's world' to donate goods
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- Sandra McCluskey runs waste collection company 'The Firm' in the Milton Keynes area from her Bedfordshire home, after being warned by others that 'it's definitely a man's world and I shouldn't be involved' in the industry.
- Only 19% of the UK waste management workforce is female, according to the Chartered Institute of Wastes Management — a figure McCluskey said had not stopped her from doing the job 'efficiently'.
- McCluskey redirects reusable items from her collections — mattresses, washing machines, dishwashers, clothes, even children's scooters — to single parents, the homeless and other vulnerable people to keep them out of landfill or roadside dumping.
- Bricks were thrown through McCluskey's home window after she 'made a strong stand' against a company she believed did not hold the correct licences to operate as a waste carrier.
- McCluskey argues registered carriers like her are being undercut by unlicensed operators, which she blames for much of the country's fly-tipping problem.
- Milton Keynes City Council says fly-tipping in the area has fallen by more than a quarter over the past five years, though it believes 'there is much more to do'.
Why it matters: A licensed female waste operator is publicly naming both the gender barrier (just 19% of the UK waste workforce is female) and the commercial threat from unlicensed rivals who undercut compliant carriers and drive fly-tipping. Her personal experience — bricks through her window after confronting an unlicensed company — puts a human face on a regulatory complaint, while her donations model offers one operator's answer to the waste problem councils still admit they have not solved.
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