Tony di Rosa's collection of historical items from sorting through rubbish

Tony di Rosa who has worked at Rochdale Exchange for 20 years

Tony di Rosa, a cleaner at Rochdale Exchange Shopping Centre, has created a personal collection of historical items after sorting through rubbish at the Exchange, where he is in charge of sorting and recycling the tonnes of waste material generated by businesses and shoppers.

In his spare time Tony, who lives on Whitworth Road, has a love of all things old and has built up a collection of interesting items from the past, including photographs and newspapers, quite a few of which he has rescued from the rubbish at the centre.

One of his latest acquisitions which he salvaged with centre management permission from a Rochdale Exchange skip is a photograph of girl band The Cheeky Girls taken when they visited the centre for the official opening of the HMV store in 2003.

He also recently retrieved a large stack of newspapers and magazines dating from 1997 headlining the tragic death of Princess Diana in Paris.

Tony said: “It’s great to pick up things like this which someone has thrown out because I just love old things and I suppose collecting them is just an extension of my job of recycling all the waste from the centre.

“I always ask permission from the centre before taking or keeping anything but most of the time, they are very happy for me to find a home for it.”

Married to his wife Wendy, 50, for the past 27 years with a 22-year-old son, Matthew, who has just got married, Tony started at the shopping centre in 1994 after spells working in a local cotton mill and the building trade and has seen lots of changes over the past two decades.

“Back in those days it was just called the Rochdale Shopping Centre and was re-named as Rochdale Exchange following a big refurbishment in 1997,” he recalled.

“I’ve always been a cleaner but these days I’m mainly responsible for making sure all the centre’s waste is properly recycled.

“We have about 60 businesses in Rochdale Exchange plus over 40 stalls on the indoor and outdoor market and it’s my job to sort the waste from them all.

“The recycling process begins when our overnight team collects all the waste from the businesses and bins and brings it down to the basement where I work. I come in at 7.30am and from then until I finish at 5.30pm I spend about 99 per cent of my time on recycling.

“The cardboard and plastic waste goes into different bailing machines while the paper is put into big grey boxes that we call `dolabs’. We also have special containers for the scrap metal we occasionally get when shops are being refurbished.

“Once it’s all correctly sorted a wagon from the recycling firm we use in Manchester comes to pick it up and take it away.

“During the course of my day I might also do other jobs such as changing the advertising posters around the centre, a bit of window cleaning, cutting the grass on St Mary’s Gate or even unblocking the toilets.”

Tony added: “At Rochdale Exchange we take recycling very seriously and a few years ago we won a Green Apple environmental award for our achievements in that direction.

“I’d say that overall we recycle as much as 75 per cent of all the waste material at the centre, which isn’t bad at all, and I’m very glad to be playing my part in helping to save the planet.

“When I started at the centre 20 years ago we used to collect up quite a bit of cardboard but there’s a lot more emphasis on recycling now and these days we fill 400 bales with cardboard alone each year, with about 23 tonnes of it being taken away in a single pick-up.”

Tony says his passion for recycling is echoed in his hobby of collecting interesting old objects.

He said: “I’m not much into modern things – I don’t have a mobile phone and I’m not computer literate – but I really enjoy collecting stuff from the past.

“One of my favourite things is an enamel ice cream sign from the 1960s which I got when it was being thrown out by a shop near where I live. Another local shop gave me a children’s toy for my son Matthew, which is a felt horse which walks when you wind it up with a key.

“But I’ve also had some really good things from the rubbish at the shopping centre and my most recent find was a photograph of The Cheeky Girls opening the HMV shop here in 2003 which was thrown out.

“That’s special to me as I remember the day very clearly. The girls arrived with their entourage and first came into the basement where I was working. From there they went upstairs to cut the ribbon at HMV.

“Another thing I found quite recently in the rubbish at the centre was a big pile of about 20 national newspapers and magazines from 1997 all about the death of Princess Diana in the crash in Paris. Somebody obviously didn’t want them anymore but to me they were like gold. The shopping centre was only too happy for me to take them.

“Finding things like this has all been part of the enjoyment of working at Rochdale Exchange and as I’ve been doing the job for so long now it shows I must be doing something right.”

Lorenzo O’Reilly, Rochdale Exchange Manager, said: “Tony is a very valued staff member who is part of a hard working team behind the scenes at Rochdale Exchange to ensure the shopping centre runs efficiently for the 6.9 million shoppers we welcome each year.