Bexley is an outer London Borough with the best of both worlds, located between the hustle and bustle of London and the Garden of England, Kent. Within the borough we have award winning parks, open spaces, and listed heritage sites.  

Bexley’s Environmental Services Team ensures that highly visible front-line services are delivered across the borough. The Council has a statutory duty to undertake waste and recycling collections from both households and commercial customers and to keep the Borough’s streets clean. These are universal services, which are used by all Bexley residents, and the department ensures that these services are delivered in an efficient, safe and cost-effective manner by its contractors. In addition, the department is responsible for the enforcement of littering and fly tipping offences, as well as the issuing of street trading licences in the borough.  

The government have told us that we must extend and enhance our recycling services, and this post is essential for delivering this change.

London Borough of Bexley is a unitary authority, so the Environmental Services Team is also responsible for the managing waste disposal and recycling contracts and the provision of two Reuse and Recycling Centres and a waste transfer station.  The team ensures that all waste and recycling collected from the kerbside, cleared from the streets or deposited at our recycling centres is managed and disposed of safely and effectively and within the requirements of the Environmental Protection Act from 1990.  

Our team also engages with Bexley residents and schools and provides advice on recycling and waste reduction. We have a pool of over 350 volunteer street litter picking volunteers who take pride in the area they live in and help us keep Bexley clean and tidy.

You will work within a team of professional and technical staff working to ensure the effective operation of the Council’s waste and recycling collection service and helping to ensure that Bexley meets the requirements of recent legislative changes. 
 
This will involve working closely with contractor staff and by dealing directly with the public and other stakeholders (such as housing associations and managing agents). You will be on the front-line dealing with complaints and enquiries, engaging with residents to explain how to use our recycling services and encouraging them to reduce, reuse and recycle.  

You will be based at Foots Cray Offices in Sidcup but at least 60% of your time will be spent in the field visiting engaging with residents, monitoring collections, and undertaking site visits. 
 
You will be an effective communicator providing advice to residents and explaining how the service operates to increase participation in recycling schemes which, in turn, will reduce the amount of household waste that Bexley sends for disposal.  

Please refer to the Job Description attached for more information. 

We will offer you in return a package that includes a competitive salary, flexible working, an excellent pension scheme and generous annual leave plus bank holidays. For more information on the benefits package on offer please refer to the Candidate Information document attached. 

For an informal discussion about the role please contact John Matthews, Environmental Services Manager on 020 3045 4632 or john.matthews@bexley.gov.uk. 

We reserve the right to close adverts earlier than the closing date. 

Relevant experience or a qualification in the waste industry is desirable but not essential. 

You will have a full UK driving license and use of a car.

 
You will be a confident and skilled communicator with good command of the English language.  

For the full list of essential and desirable criteria for this role then please refer to the Person Specification within the Job Description attached. 

Use the ‘Apply for vacancy’ button. 

Please note that the system has a one-hour time limit. We would advise you to prepare your answers separately and then copy and paste into the online form once finalised and have your CV and/or Supporting statement ready to upload. 

If any mandatory fields are missing, a pop-up box will appear at the top of the page advising which sections require completion. Please check your Junk email for any correspondence. 

Additional Information 

As a disability confident employer Bexley welcomes applications from people with all disabilities, including hidden disabilities and mental health conditions. We will interview any disabled applicant who meets the minimum criteria. If you require reasonable adjustments to be made to any part of the recruitment process due to your disability, please contact us on  recruitment@bexley.gov.uk  

This post is considered by the authority to be a customer-facing position; as such it falls within scope of the Code of Practice on English language requirement for public sector workers. The council therefore has a statutory duty under Part 7 of the Immigration Act 2016 to ensure that post holders have a command of spoken English sufficient for the effective performance of the job requirements. The appropriate standards are set out in the JD/Person Specification. These will be applied during the recruitment/selection and probationary stages.