The Habitat Advocate

 

Live vegetation is waste management JJ Richards?

Above is our consultant’s tree branch from his street verge taken out by Blue Mountains {city} Council outsourced waste management truck to JJ Richards meatheads last Thursday 16th February 2023.  

We felt Council might like to get out of its ivory tower high rise offices isolated from ratepayers and find out what is actually going on in its so-called city within a disappearing World Heritage Area.  So this is our memento to Council and its hypocritical ‘planetary health’ sentiment.

Whilst working from home at the time we heard the recycle truck outside doing it rounds in the street and then snap!   So he went out to inspect.

 

 

 

So as a resident ratepayer, what does one do? 

Pick up the pieces, saw off the hacked tree limb, clear the footpath.  It wasn’t even green bin collection, as in green waste.

 

Here’s the culprit driver we caught taking off heading back to Council base minutes later.

 

Quite a noisy and distinctive vehicle in our short quiet street, so we went outside and watched it depart.

 

This particular day was ‘yellow lid bin’ recycled waste removal day.  Council gets recycled waste collected fortnightly.   

Our mutually courteous arrangement with the waste removal drivers has worked just fine for many years without issue.   No yellow lid bins were outside our premises at the time of removal.  They never are, because we position all bins on the other side of our street where there are no verge trees, so that the driver gets a clear run.  It’s the same for the weekly garbage collection (red lid bins) and also for the garden green organic waste (green lid bins). 

But J.J. Richards in November 2022 must have employed a new driver to do a run that included our street.  This when the garbage started.  We noted this because the driver turned up around lunch time instead off the normal mid-morning, taking a different route only to back track many times.  He seemed lost.  Likely no handover training was provided by J.J. Richards from their older experienced bloke to this malicious meathead.   So what happened to the older experienced bloke we’d had for two decades?

And on his first round this malicious meathead hit the curb at the end of our street, failing to judge the sharp corner.   

 

Two weeks after the curb was run over by JJ Richards, and reported and the concrete stormwater cover re-positioned, the same driver hit the same curb and stormwater cover again.  Slow learner!

Unbelievable!

Council was informed a second time but chose to ignore the Customer Service Request (CSR) complaint and simply closed the CSR we suspect to exaggerate its statistics; not the first time.    How about fixing our footpath before a local pedestrian coming home in the dark breaks their foot.

 

We reported this stormwater drain cover damage by the truck to Blue Mountains {city} Council twice since November 2022.  The initial Customer Service Request (CSR) reference number was  441245.  Council fixed it the first time, but next month the same trucker collected it again.   The damage was again reported , yet three months later it remained damaged and dangerous for pedestrians, especially at night.

Clearly the driver of the J.J. Richards waste truck lacks the skills to know that tight corners require a wider margin to allow the rear wheels with a smaller turning circle to miss the inside curb.  (This author has held a heavy combination ‘HC’ semi license since the 1980’s).

In disbelief, we delivered our severed tree limb to Blue Mountains {city} Council’s reception to pass on to its Waste Management department with a please explain.

 

 

Council’s Waste services did not respond to our complaint until 3rd March 2023, thus:

 

“I’m writing in regards to your phone call lodging a CSR on 16 February and your follow up email providing photos of the damaged branch out the front of your property.

We are sorry that the tree has been damaged in this way.  We have asked JJ’s to review the footage.  From lifting the bin at a previous property and moving toward the bin and the next property, the truck did go under the overhanging tree.  The footage shows that a very small branch dropped behind the truck, so the driver wasn’t aware of the damaged branch shown in your photos.  The driver will be asked to take particular care in the future.”

(Rebecca) Manager, Resource Recovery & Waste Services, Blue Mountains Council.

 

“Very small branch”?   Garbage!  It was 2 metres long and 5 cm thick.  Our overhand is 2.7 metres about the road, ideal for shade for cars given that there is precious little shade around our area.  But is is not suited to bulldozing truck incompetent meatheads!   The JJ Richards truck cabin roof front will surely have a dent atop.

So Council management, enjoy our dead shrub!   Have J.J Richards waste collect it. 

 

 

Some bloke at JJ Richards (Aaron) rang us to say JJ Richard’s were inspecting their recycle truck’s dashcams.   We never got that call back from Aaron. 

 

Then a week later, JJ Richards (green lid) waste truck ran over the same corner curb.  The driver is either a meathead else serial offender employed by JJ Richards and Sons Pty Ltd, probably with dodgy quals and no reference checks.  

Council’s Waste Manager Rebeccas claims a Council maintenance team “s promptly actioned” the stormwater drain cover damage and after subsequent damage would “rectify the safety hazard the damaged stormwater covers pose”.  However, Council maintenance team did nothing of the sort.   On Sunday 12^th March I chatted with a nearby neighbour about this saga, and he told me he’s heard and seen truck hit the curb in question, and that he has taken it upon himself to reposition the concrete stormwater three times. 

Yet Rebecca reckons her maintenance crew fixed the three damage episodes?  She’s in desk-bound Lalaland.

 

 

Seriously, this JJ Richards serial malicious meathead trucker off the road, before a local pedestrian trips or gets seriously injured!  Where else is he causing streetscape havoc vandalism?

 

JJ Richards ‘Total Waste Management‘ means…?  

 

… red lid bins, indeed any lid coloured bins, curbs, stormwater drain lids, verges, trees, parked cars, other trucks, buildings, pedestrians, councillors…the planet. 

JJ Richards TOTAL WASTE MANAGEMENT !

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Council’s waste manager in denial and ignoring our requests concerning this matter, we’ve tried engaging directly with JJ Richards Contract manager Aaron Hilliard.  This is the same person who didn’t get back to us once he watched his culprit driver’s dashcam footage running into our verge tree.

On 16th March 2023 it went like this:

“Hello Aaron,  as requested, I forward you my correspondence with Blue Mountains Council since November 2022 complaining about the damage in my street (and then verge) by this same JJ Richards Driver).  It includes my photo records.  Please read these, and understand that all I want is for this ongoing damage to stop, and then please investigate and sort this ASAP and  let me know the outcome.  Much appreciated. “ 

Aaron’s reply:

“I spoke to Rebecca (Manager, Resource Recovery & Waste Services, Blue Mountains Council) yesterday again about the issues you have raised.  Rebecca has now advised that all correspondence should go through Council for their follow up.  Please contact Council with any further issues you experience with the waste, recycling & garden organics services.  Thank you. Aaron”

Our response:

“It may be inconvenient to both JJ Richards and Council, but the malicious damage cause by JJ Richards as waste contractor to Blue Mountains Council it is more inconvenient to me.  I shall continue to contact both JJ Richards and Council until this problem is properly resolved. Ignoring our complaint will only prologue the matter and escalate it into politics and the media, if that is what you both want.”

 

On 28th March we phone JJ Richards again trying to track down Aaron’s boss at Glendenning.   We’re told Aaron was on the tools  at the time (back on the road driving a  JJ truck) to fill in for JJ drivers taking sickies.   Reception puts us through to ‘Ray’, who comes across as older than Aaron and we suspect Rat report to Aaron not vice versa.  Ray says he knows nothing, so we email him Ray about the saga, asking all we just want this JJ Richards street damage and harassment to us to end.   

No replies yet from Ray, not unsurprisingly.   So, we’ll keep moving up the JJ Richards pecking order (garbage trail). 

 

INCIDENT 5:

Gets worse…Tuesday 28th March at 7:30am, a JJ Richards recycle truck pulls up outside our home and puts his reversing alert on for up to 10 minutes, but without actually reversing.

Tuesday’s not a scheduled waste collection day nor was there any booked curbside household waste to collect anywhere in our small street.

The loud beeping noise woke us up, so I go outside into the street and the driver suddenly took off.  Harassment or what?

I shall get his rego next time on video.  He’s on notice for such harassment.   

Council’s waster manager Rebecca claimed the driver was looking for an empty a missed recycle bin from the Thursday prior after the owner complained.  Our street of all of 100 metres in length, so not exactly difficulty to find the only bin put out for collection in the street.  

It remains full.  Unbelievable.  We have a meathead  on our hands and Council and JJ Richards are in collaborative denial. 

Has this individual had background police checks before he started working at JJ Richards?  Has he got mental health issues or a criminal history such as a an AVO perhaps?

I saw him on his run last Thursday, observing he is a younger male perhaps in his 30s with medium length blonde dreadlock hair. 

The saga continues…

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We recall a previous trucking meathead back on 2 August 2019 who crashed his Metromix Concrete mixer truck into a crash barrier nearby.

 

 

 

Oddly, Council gave Metromix the concrete contract, but not to properly replace the damaged barrier, but to construct new concrete curbing.  Well, it’s one way to get a council contract, s’pose.  Two years later though in August 2021.  The verge is full of weeds.  Welcome to The Gully.

 

 

 

We do monitor the ongoing damage in The Gully in Katoomba, a gazetted heritage place since 2002, and our surrounding historical North’s Estate streetscape dating back to 1876 and heritage listed.  We’ve been based here since 2001.