Women in male-dominated jobs: Debbie Tasker, a 24-year-old driver loader who works for recycling and waste management company Veolia on behalf of Croydon Council, loves getting her hands dirty and is braver than her male colleagues when it comes to picking up dead animals
Debbie Tasker, 24, loves her job as a
bin lady as it allows her to get her hands dirty and have some banter
with her male colleagues
I worked in a pet shop for seven years straight out of school, but it just
wasn’t my kind of job. I like to try new things, so I heard about this job I
approached one of the supervisors and that was it, I’ve been working here
for about 18 months now. It's just a blast coming in, getting my head down
and getting on with the job; getting my hands dirty.
Every weekday I get up at 4am and drive the 15 minutes from the house where I
live with my parents to the depot in Croydon. I don’t wear makeup and just
pull on a hat, I don’t care about my hair. My uniform is nice and warm, but
when I first started the clothes were practically double my size. Once I
arrive I sign in, get my books and keys and check my vehicle for any
problems. I pick up my colleague Jimmy, who’s 32 and a good mate, on the way
and we start our shift at about 5am.
We begin with our daily trip around the shops emptying all the streets bins
into the back of the truck. We’ll sweep some roads and pavements and go in
and out of all the road turnings, because we get a lot of fly tips around
here. We find all sorts of rubbish, like old settees, which we just chuck in
the back. On the small estate we cover we’ll find dead animals like foxes
about once a month. We put it nicely in a bag before we dispose of them
though. Jimmy never gets protective of me over things like that, if anything
I’m protective of him. He hates picking up dead animals, so I’m always the
one doing it.
We take a break at around 8am for an hour, and then we’re onto litter picking,
some more fly tips and sweeping up leaves. I finish about 1pm and go to the
tip to chuck all the rubbish, which normally takes about half an hour. It’s
quite a long day. Mondays seem particularly long because people like to go
fly tipping at the weekend. It’s annoying when they don’t bother to put
their rubbish in the right bags, they just dump it everywhere. It’s more
work for us, but that’s just the job.
Debbie pictured at the depot in Croydon
