A family-owned UK waste management company, founded in 1929 and based in the Oxfordshire and Berkshire area, handling collections, recycling, hazardous waste and energy from waste.
Grundon describes itself as the UK's largest family-owned waste management company. Its services include commercial waste collection and recycling (general, mixed, food, glass and compostable waste, paper cups and towels), confidential and secure destruction, construction and bulky waste, hazardous and chemical waste, electrical waste, and clinical waste including sharps and inhaler recycling. It also offers tanker services, industrial cleaning and event waste management. It owns and runs depots and treatment sites, including anaerobic digestion, energy from waste, landfill, high-temperature incineration and materials recovery.
The company began in 1929, when Stephen Grundon started a business that, in the family's words, was "two men and a truck". It grew from aggregate extraction and haulage into waste. Norman Grundon became chairman in 1993, and his son Neil Grundon, now chairman, became deputy chairman in 2012. The business is led by the third generation of the family. In 2019 Norman Grundon and Steve Judge wrote a book about the company's history, The Road from Sand and Gravel, with proceeds going to Child Bereavement UK. Its stated vision is to unlock the potential of waste, with the tagline "There is more to waste than it seems".
Grundon's registered office is at Benson, near Wallingford in Oxfordshire. The company says it makes about 57,000 collections a week, has more than 15,000 customers and employs more than 850 people. A trade wiki lists the Lakeside energy-from-waste plant as a joint venture with Viridor, and the company says a new transfer station is under construction in Bristol. We could not confirm from the pages we read where each of its other sites is, so we have not listed them.
The company lists its values as integrity, caring, excellence and curiosity. It says it has worked to reduce its carbon footprint for more than 25 years, and it holds accreditations including Investors in People and Living Wage, as well as FORS, Carbon Neutral and Cyber Essentials Plus. A family business of this size tends to put emphasis on long service and local roots, and in 2019 Norman Grundon thanked employees, customers and suppliers for the company's success. These are the company's own statements.
Roles at Grundon include collection drivers and crew, plant and site operators, engineers, laboratory and chemical staff for hazardous waste, health and safety advisers, customer service and sales staff, and teams in finance, fleet, IT and sustainability. If you like the idea of working for a business that is still run by the founding family, in a region with many other science and engineering employers, Grundon is a good company to look into.
Website: www.grundon.com
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