Posted By Bob Youel I presume that the 'rules' you are speaking of are H&S related? If so the council is subject to the same H&S law etc as you are and as for your site rules; if somebody accesses your site they should conform to your rules irrespective That said evaluate 'free' against 'paid for' - I am surprised that you are still getting this service for free!- and match that against the costs. Thereafter if its low risk and free it may be best if you accept this situation. However you take the risk and its all relative that's what balancing risk is all about Do you get the risk assessments from the milkman, post man etc? If not why not would be another question to ask

Posted By Ron Hunter A bit of a cheapskate Council anyway - we would normally supply metal skips! (Well - it is Friday after all) ;-)

Posted By Jon Dawson09 Hi May The reason it is free is because someone (the council or a contractor) is making money out of selling the paper for recycling. That said, you may have no contract with them, but you are still responsible for what happens on your site. If 'they' won't provide a basic risk assessment eg for loading the skip, the most risky aspect, why not risk assess it yourself? If you feel it is not acceptable, then get rid (and pay to have your paper collected). If the council provide the service, they should already have asked these questions - a sensible call to their H & S officer explaining your dilemma might help. If the skip provider refuses to co-operate, ask the council who is liable if the skip falls on someone's head - that usually focuses the mind. Jon

Posted By Graham Bullough May No doubt any risk assessment regarding the paper skip (alias the metal skip for collecting paper) will take into account what sort of site you have, any access by members of public as well as employees, plus available space for related vehicle manoeuvres. If for any reason your organisation decides not to continue with the free collections of paper by your local council, why change to paying to have it collected? If you can find out which firm processes the paper collected by the council, it might be willing to collect from your site either free of charge or even pay for the paper. Also there may be other processing firms who might be interested. If your organisation can collect good quality paper for recycling (e.g. white photocopy paper) and ensure that it is not “contaminated” by cardboard, dyed paper, etc., such firms tend to pay more for such paper because it will cost less to process and can be sold for better money as a quality recycled product. The present arrangement should already be saving your organisation the money which it would otherwise have to pay for disposing of the paper as commercial waste. However, if your organisation does change collectors, it will presumably want to ask any new collector the same questions as you are putting to your local council – which, er, takes you back to the scenario which prompted you to post this thread! Irrespective of which organisation collects the paper, why not suggest doing a joint risk assessment with them? If you are not getting anywhere with the contact at the council recycling department, try contacting the council health & safety team as suggested by one or more earlier responders. Ultimately, if a collector (council, processing firm or contract collector) can show or even demonstrate what precautions are taken when delivering and collecting such skips at sites generally, the joint risk assessment for your site could be quite short and simple.