Big clear-up after book and paper lorry sheds it load (From This Is Lancashire)

Big clear-up after book and paper lorry sheds it load

11:20am Saturday 11th February 2012 in News

IT was a story of frustration for motorists after a lorry shed hundreds of books on to a busy road.

The sorry chapter began at 9.20am last Wednesday when the lorry is said to have hit a bump in the road near the Bass Lane junction of Walmersley Road in Ramsbottom.

It caused five tonnes of books and paper to spill on to the road, blocking the Edenfield-bound side of the road.

Drivers alerted Bury Council bosses, who sent eight staff in two tippers and two street-cleaning vehicles to get things back to normal.

Police had to close the road for 20 minutes.

But even that was not enough to clear the mess, so workers called for reinforcements.

And to the relief of drivers, the tale had a happy ending.

A council spokesman said: “We sent up a further two street-cleaning vehicles and three cleansing crews.

“The work took around two hours in total and we picked up between 4.5 and five tonnes of paper.”

The council has sent a bill for the clean-up operation to Blackburn-based firm Smurfit Kappa Recycling, whose lorry caused the problem.

Peter Fish, who saw the incident, said: “The spillage of books and magazines stretched up the road to the Red Hall Hotel and possibly further.”

Smurfit’s operations director Matthew Berrill said: “We regret the inconvenience and disruption caused to local people when paper material escaped from one of our collection trucks.

“We worked with the local council and police to clear up the incident and ensure traffic returned to normal as soon as possible.

“We regard it as unacceptable that this incident occurred and are undertaking a full investigation into what happened. Fortunately this was an isolated occurrence. Every day, we use up to 80 lorries around the country to bring paper and cardboard to our mills in Birmingham and Kent, where it is recycled for use in the manufacture of new paper packaging.”