Awards and recognition: what we have instead

We have not won any waste industry awards. No trophies, no finalist badges, nothing on the wall behind reception — mostly because there is no reception.

That is an odd thing for a company to publish. Bear with us, because the reason is the interesting part.

Why an award is on the page at all

Awards are a heuristic. Nobody choosing a waste company has time to read an environmental permit, so they look for a shortcut: a badge, a logo, a line that says somebody else has already checked. That is not cynical, it is sensible. Under uncertainty, people borrow other people's homework.

The trouble is that the shortcut is only as good as the panel behind it, and most industry awards are popularity contests with better stationery. Judges who have never driven a route. Criteria that reward the entry form rather than the work. A badge tells you a company was good at applying for a badge.

So rather than go and win one, we would rather give you the thing the badge is standing in for: the primary source, with the reference number, on a register you can search without asking us.

What you can check, and where

Our waste carrier registration. CBDU276268, held by Konrad Makuch trading as Alexander Waste Services Ltd, registered as a Carrier Dealer and valid until 19 February 2028. It is on the Environment Agency's public register of waste carriers, brokers and dealers. Search the number; you do not have to take our word for any of it.

Our waste exemptions. WEX476199, covering S1 and S2 — storage. They permit holding waste securely before it is transported somewhere else to be recovered. They do not permit treating, sorting or recycling, and we do not claim to do any of those. We collect it, we keep the streams apart on the way, and we take it to a facility that is permitted to deal with it.

Where it actually goes. Beddington Energy Recovery Facility, environmental permit EPR/BV7722ID. That is R1 energy recovery — burning waste to generate power. It is recovery, and it is not recycling, and we would rather say so plainly than let the word do work it has not earned.

The paperwork. A waste transfer note in your name, issued when we complete a collection, by email and on your account. It is your record under the Duty of Care regulations and you should keep it for at least two years. If yours has not arrived, ask and we will send it.

All four live on our credentials page, with the numbers, so you can check them in about ninety seconds.

Why there is no recycling figure anywhere on this site

Because we do not process waste. Whatever happens to the material happens at the receiving facility, under their permit and in their reporting — not in ours. A company that only collects and transports has no rate of its own to publish, and a number nobody could audit is a number we will not print.

You will find plenty of waste companies publishing one. Ask them the follow-up: over what period, measured how, and audited by whom. It is a fair question and it is the whole question.

What we would rather be judged on

Turning up inside the window we promised. Charging what we quoted, including the bit about the stairs. Answering the phone when a job has gone wrong. Sending the note without being chased.

None of that is award-shaped. It is not a campaign, it does not photograph well, and there is no category for it. It is also the entire job.

The award we would actually want

If somebody ran one for the waste company whose claims were easiest to verify, we would enter that tomorrow. Until then, the register is open, the numbers are above, and the check takes less time than reading this sentence twice.

A thank you that means something

To the drivers, who do the work in weather nobody would choose. And to the customers who picked a company on what it could evidence rather than on what it could win.

That is the only recognition that survives contact with a bad Tuesday.