A binman who came up with a novel way of turning rubbish into money has retired after helping to raise more than £90k for charity.
Graham Alexander has been helping clean the city's streets for 44 years, working with both Liverpool Streetscene Services (LSSL), and the fly tipping removal service. It was the 62-year-old who first came up with the idea of converting rubbish into cash while removing waste that had been fly tipped on the street.
Peter Killey, Graham's co-worker, said: "What we discovered when removing fly tipped rubbish was a lot of scrap metal. So we started collecting that scrap metal and dropping it off at recycling centres who collect it free of charge and gave us the cheque. Those cheques were dropped off at Zoe's Place."
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Zoe's Place is a children's hospice which looks after babies and small children with life-limiting or life-threating illnesses across the UK, including a site in West Derby. Incredibly, over the last six years Graham, a dad of three, and the rest of the LSSF staff have raised more than £95,000 for the hospice.
Peter, 52, said: "We chose Zoe's Place because we've known friends and colleagues who have had children at the hospice."
Although fundraising was a group effort, Graham was the leader of the operation. Peter, from Childwall continued: "Graham helps everyday with the donations, he does the collecting and he drops off the cheques at Zoe's Place so they've got to know him really well over the years. He's the face of the entire operation."
To say thank you for his 44 years at LSSL and for the money he has raised, Peter and the rest of the team held a special party for Graham ahead of his official retirement at Christmas. He said: "He's always there for everyone so we just wanted to say thank you."
At the retirement party, an emotional Graham was presented with a large cheque to show just how much money LSSF has donated to Zoe's Place since 2016.
LSSL is going to continue collecting scrap metal to donate and Graham is still going to be involved. Peter said: "I think I'll have to start dropping off the cheques but Graham still wants to be involved. He'll just be helping from his armchair or his caravan."
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