Our local authority has joined forces with a private company to collect and recycle household waste. Currently my particular street has a weekly collection of household waste and a twice weekly collection of recyclable waste (glass & paper). The new collection system is several different (large) plastic boxes for different types of waste, plus a weekly collection of non recyclable waste. This amounts to a trebling of bending and lifting for the operatives, but also a trebling of lifting and carrying for residents. I emailed the company concerned expressing my fears for the operatives (not residents) increased bending and lifting but was quite surprised to get this as part of the reply: "We do appreciate that for many residents, there will be some increased lifting. We have put measures in place to assist elderly and disabled residents with this by providing assisted collections. In terms of your concerns over Risk Assessment, to my knowledge, Risk Assessments only need to be carried out for business/commercial purposes and not for individual residencies as these are private dwellings." Would the increased lifting for the residents count as the companys acts or omissions as they have asked residents to do this? Please dont get me wrong, I am all for recycling but it just worried me that a company could ask this and only be concerned with elderly and disabled. What about pregnant women, Young people etc? Or have I gone Health & Safety mad?

Lol Yes I am expecting a bit of flack.