Waste Collector (Refuse Collector) CV Examples & Writing Guide

"Waste collector", "refuse collector", "refuse loader" and "bin man" are the everyday UK terms; councils and contractors also advertise "waste and recycling operative" or "driver/loader", so use the advert's wording on your application. This sample is for a collector with about ten years who now leads a residential round. The name and employers are invented.

Hiring is done by a collections supervisor or operations manager who has rounds going out short-staffed. They read for five things.

• Attendance. Rounds go out whether you turn up or not, so a supervisor with an absent loader ends up on the back of the lorry himself. An attendance percentage on a CV is unusual and it works.
• Safety record. Preventable accidents, injuries, reversing incidents. Say plainly how many years you have gone without one, because otherwise they assume the worst.
• Round volume and speed. Bins per day, tonnes collected, round completion against the scheduled time, and whether you worked residential, recycling, food waste, trade waste or skips. Those are different jobs.
• Licence. A Category C licence with a Driver CPC card turns a loader into a driver, and HGV drivers are the seats nobody can fill. If you are working towards it, say so.
• Physical durability. This job is pulling bins and climbing in and out of the cab several hundred times a day, in every kind of weather. Managers are trying to guess whether you will last past week three.

“Attendance and accidents. That is the top of my list, then how many stops a day you have run and on what kind of truck. If you have the licence to drive it and a current medical, I will call you the same day.”

Two or three lines. Round volume first, safety second, licence third. Use a career objective for a first job in the industry.

The job is collecting, driving or loading, checking, reporting and doing it safely. Here is each part with a number attached.

Eight to twelve lines. Vehicle types and round work first, safety and licences second, the physical facts last.

• Vehicles you have worked on: rear-end loader, split-body or twin-pack, food waste vehicle, skip loader, roll-on/off, caged tipper. Name them, because they are different jobs.
• Round types: residential, kerbside recycling, garden waste, food waste, bulky waste, trade waste.
• Driving licence: category (C1, C or C+E), Driver CPC card and expiry, and any points.
• Daily walk-round checks and defect reporting.
• Reversing procedure and acting as reversing assistant (banksman), which is where many serious incidents in this job happen.
• Manual handling and safe bin lift use for hundreds of repetitions a shift.
• Hazardous and prohibited item recognition in the waste, such as batteries, gas bottles and clinical waste.
• In-cab technology: route devices, photo evidence of missed or contaminated bins, bin chip readers.
• Transfer station, energy-from-waste and materials recovery facility (MRF) procedures, including weighbridge tickets and waste transfer notes.
• Weather and catch-up work: snow, heat, bank holiday catch-up schedules.
• Customer service on the round: bin presentation rules, missed collections, difficult conversations.
• Physical realities, stated plainly: pulling and pushing loaded wheelie bins and lifting sacks of 20 to 30 kg repeatedly, climbing in and out of the cab hundreds of times a day, 6 am starts.

A loader job needs no special licence. Everything above it does, and moving from loader to driver is the single biggest pay step in this industry.

• A Category C (rigid HGV) licence covers most refuse collection vehicles. Some skip, roll-on/off and articulated transfer work needs C+E. List your category and any points honestly.
• Professional HGV drivers need a Driver CPC card (35 hours of periodic training every 5 years), and the HGV licence needs a D4 medical when you apply and again on renewal. Give the CPC expiry, because an expired card takes you off the lorry immediately.
• Many councils and contractors run loader-to-driver schemes and pay for HGV training. If you are a loader with provisional C entitlement and a test date, say so, because it changes how you are read.
• Employer safety training on reversing assistance, manual handling, bin lift operation and hazard recognition. Write "employer-provided" with the year it was refreshed.
• WAMITAB offers qualifications for waste collection and site operations, and CIWM is the professional body if you move into supervision. Naming the qualification you completed is stronger than a general claim.
• Safe urban driving courses (for example the FORS-approved Safe Urban Driving module, which can count towards Driver CPC) are common in this field and worth listing by name with the year.
• First aid, useful on a round and expected for chargehand roles.
• A clean licence. If yours is clean, say so, because employers check it with the DVLA before you start anyway.

This industry takes on beginners constantly, because the work is hard and turnover is high. The CV only has to convince a collections supervisor that you will turn up, keep up and not get hurt.

1. 1Put "Refuse Loader" or the advert's exact title under your name.
2. 2Write a two-line career objective that names the physical reality: repeated lifting and pulling, 6 am starts, all-weather outdoor work, long days on your feet.
3. 3Give an attendance figure from any past job. It is the number this industry cares about most and almost nobody puts it on a CV.
4. 4Turn any physical job into bullets with counts: warehouse, landscaping, construction, removals, farm work, restaurant. Weights lifted, hours, shifts, no-injury record.
5. 5State your driving licence and any points, and whether you hold or want provisional HGV entitlement. Many employers pay for HGV training and take on loaders as future drivers.
6. 6Say you are comfortable working around traffic and heavy vehicles, and mention any safety training you already have, such as a CSCS card or IOSH Working Safely.
7. 7Register with industrial and driving agencies as well as applying direct. Many councils and contractors fill loader vacancies through agencies first.
8. 8One page, plain layout, no photo.

• One page. This gets read in a depot office or on a clipboard before the rounds go out.
• Order: header with target title, personal statement or career objective, licence and safety record, skills, experience, training, education. Licence and safety go high because they are the screening questions.
• Single column, plain black text, no photo, no date of birth, no graphics. Councils and large contractors in particular run applicant tracking systems with rigid parsing.
• Give month and year on every job. Contract changes, seasonal work and agency work are normal here, so label agency assignments with the agency name and note TUPE transfers so a change of employer does not look like job-hopping.
• Include your attendance percentage and your years without an accident. Almost nobody does, and both are exactly what the supervisor is trying to work out.
• Council jobs often require an application form with a supporting statement, so keep your dates and job titles consistent with what you write there.
• PDF or a clean printed copy, named Firstname-Lastname-Collection-CV.pdf.
• US readers: the job is sanitation worker or collection helper and you send a resume. Drivers need a CDL rather than an HGV licence, but round volumes, safety record and attendance matter exactly the same way.

Words worth mirroring from the advert when they apply: refuse collection, waste and recycling operative, loader, driver/loader, kerbside recycling, residential round, trade waste, RCV, rear-end loader, wheelie bins, 1,100-litre bins, bins per day, tonnage, round completion, walk-round check, reversing assistant, banksman, hazard recognition, duty of care, transfer station, weighbridge, Category C, Driver CPC, attendance, safety record.