The news that dominated this week was the unspeakable life and death of six year old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes. Disclosures at the trial have left people stunned, saddened and for some opened wounds which afflicted their own childhood. There’s nothing can be done for Arthur now, may he rest in the peace he so richly deserves.
I feel slightly voyoristic watching the dreadful Volcano fires on La Palma, it’s mesmerising the way the lava flow creeps down to engulf over 4.5 square miles of the island, surely a terrible beauty as the red hot lava shoots 1600 feet in the air.
Can you imagine just standing watching your home be smothered and you can do nothing about it. Farms are disappearing and what’s happening to the animals, dread to think. Since September 19th 2,790 building have been destroyed, people fleeing probably with only important papers and personal items, pets and what you stand up in not knowing where to turn. Frightening what is happening to our world.
Recycling All Our Paper Waste
I phoned the City Hall, got through to waste management, simple query. If I have a lot of private material, papers, records etc can you burn them for me? No. Can you shred them? No. Can you safely dispose of them? No.
Pity especially as carelessness means sensitive papers can turn up in a desk drawer in a charity shop. This happened recently, strictly confidential documents relating to Belfast Health Trust discovered by a member of the public who purchased the desk and got more than he bargained for. Details of private telephone numbers, minutes of meetings, employees salaries, information back to 2012. There were also details of failures in one particularly hospital ward. It’s a disaster for the Trust that was fined £225,000 15 years ago, in that case patient records were found at the abandoned Belvoir Park Hospital. My material was small beer compared to that.
WHAT’S THE ANSWER?
I was relating this story to a friend, a physiotherapist who has to safely dispose of old records on a regular basis. Advice please? “No problem,” she said, “Shredbank.” The answer to a maiden’s prayer and a suggestion to big business who may not have heard of this answer.
Shredbank, which is based in Carryduff, was established in 2007 by two men, James Carson and Philip Bain. They had grown up together but lost contact. When by chance they met again talk got round to exploring the thought of going into business and they came up with a great entrepreneurial idea to counter such carelessness as the files in the desk, papers being found on a train, spies going through bins and skips and often sensitive material being stolen and used illegally. It was in the news and gave them the idea of developing travelling units to shred bulk bundles of paper. The idea took off and now Shredbank is a leading on-site document shredding company.
“We specialise in confidential document destruction services to organisations and individuals throughout Northern Ireland. “ Philip told me. “We shred everything at your premises using mobile shredding trucks giving you complete security and peace of mind. We can provide you with a regular scheduled service or a one-off clearout service depending on your requirements. All the shredded material is baled and recycled onto tissue products such as kitchen and toilet rolls and so help to protect our environment.”
Often clients want to be sure the destruction is total so they are invited to watch as their documents enter the state of the art trucks and into the shredding machine, they are issued with a certificate of destruction, the appropriate waste transfer notes and, for scheduled clients, annual environmental certificates estimating how many trees have been saved.
Schedules are complex detailing regular customers maybe requiring twice weekly service, perhaps every month or whatever is needed; there are Coleraine Days to Derry Days and all in between. The trained drivers are often required to lift 500 boxes, maybe climb five flights of stairs, or venture down twisty entries to lift a dozen pallets.
Another aspect of Shredbank is the locked secure boxes placed in offices. These units have a bag inside and papers destined to be shredded are posted into the box, the client holding one key and the shredding representative the other. When required a driver will arrive, unlock the box remove the bag and take it to the shredding van and destroy it on the spot. A dedicated employee can go with their material to watch it being shredded. In this day and age of ‘hot desking’ never knowing where you will be sitting from one day to another, and a clear desk policy is required so this box takes care of all surplus pages, bulky diaries or files. A lot is up to the office manager to decide what is standard waste and what is sensitive, a matter of doing the ‘bin test’, is it confidential, personal, sensitive or just standard office waste fit for the waste paper basket? But make sure what’s what, there’s no going back after visiting the shredder!
That’s Big Business Looked After.
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In Belfast all I have to do is go along to Forestside Shopping Centre on the last Friday of the month between 12 noon and 2 p.m and join the Shredathon, it sounds like a bit of a party with regulars meeting up, their bundles under their arms. In the beginning only one or two people came along but more recently 40 plus arrive with their papers and watch them being eaten by the mobile shredder. There is no charge for this service although the public is invited to make a voluntary donation which goes to Alzheimer’s Research and thousands of pounds have been collected in recent years.
This award winning company is the master stroke of two life long friends who had lost touch, met and their combined experience of sales and marketing, operations and logistics and their meeting of minds resulted in a simple concept to eliminate the risk of precious papers falling Ito the wrong hands. Now they have 20 members of staff, state of the art IT, their service stretches all over Northern Ireland and theirs is the largest such fleet in Northern Ireland.
To give you an idea of cost, roughly 20 boxes will be around £100. Prices depend and are available by phoning 0800 6335599. More details at www.shredbank.co.uk .
Isn’t it interesting to follow the comeuppance of Angela Rayner, she of the glorious hair and Labour’s deputy leader.
In September 2021, Rayner made controversial remarks about senior members of the Conservative Party, stating: “We cannot get any worse than a bunch of scum, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, absolute pile… of banana republic… Etonian… piece of scum”
According to Labour MP Emily Thornberry, these initial comments were made at a fringe meeting where Rayner may have been drinking alcohol. Some Labour MPs, while saying it was not the language that they would have used, defended her comments. Starmer distanced himself from her remarks, but said it was up to Rayner if she wanted to apologise or not,[28] while other Labour MPs, including shadow cabinet ministers, condemned her in stronger terms.
Well it looks like she’s being shoved to the sidelines, her senior member of staff has gone under investigation and it appears that a lot of her colleagues don’t want to know. She did apologise eventually but .. Watch this space!
Don’t forget to have a look in your wardrobe and see if you have any nice clean warm cloths you can pass on to one of the charities. There are lots of people who are cold these days and would welcome a nice warm coat. As long as you aren’t Lady Gaga who I’m sure does a lot better than this cartoon.
Thank you Susie Hailes Harkin for the lovely sky pic.