A Coventry company has turned its waste and materials handling fleet completely JCB yellow with its latest order of four new machines. 
Wastemasters Hire’s latest purchase includes a 437 wheeled loading shovel, a 457 Wheeled loader, a 560-80WM Loadall and a JS20MH wheeled material handler. The machines are built at JCB’s factories in Uttoxeter, Rocester and Cheadle, Staffordshire.
They have been bought to meet the growing demand for short-term hire of machines in the waste and recycling sector. Wastemasters Hire’s parent company, Tom White Waste (TWW), already has a fleet of fleet of JCB machines. Established in the waste sector for 40 years, TWW has used several rival brands over those four decades – but with the latest purchase it will now be 100% JCB.
Paul Labram, Operations Manager at TWW and Director at Wastemasters Hire, said: “I’ve worked in the waste business for 15 years in various positions, including mechanic and machine driver. The loading shovels produced by JCB today are the best that we have ever bought. In our opinion, they are perfect for the job; everything is pretty much as you would want from a loading shovel, materials handler or telehandler.
“They are all popular machines for the sector, so we ordered the same for our hire business. All the recent orders, bar the 457, which is suited to larger operations, we run on our own waste handling sites.”
The waste and recycling sector is a relatively young industry and has only recently benefitted from access to specialist handling machines, specifically designed to meet challenging environments. Short-term hire for these machines scarce and this can be significantly limiting for busy operations. This was certainly the case for Wastemaster’s parent. On its own sites, which recycle mixed general and commercial wastes, shovels load up to 30 lorries a day, as well as shredders and bins. The materials handlers work feeding recycling plants for the processing of material all day.
Paul Labram added: “You can get a standard construction machine easily enough, but it wouldn’t have the right arms, buckets, tyres, etc that are required to work on waste handling and recycling sites. We couldn’t find anybody offering a recycling sector specific range for hire. So we thought: why don’t we get into the hire business ourselves?”
Wastemasters Hire now provides a fast, flexible plant hire business to meet the need for loading shovels and material handling machinery from waste and recycling industry clients across the country. Since it started in January this year, Wastemasters Hire has been inundated with a high demand for the hire machines, which has seen them go directly from job to job.
