My father, Jon Vogler, who has died aged 77, used his skills as an engineer to set up the UK’s first large-scale recycling system. In 1974, when recycling at home was virtually unknown in Britain, Jon designed a household scheme in West Yorkshire for Oxfam called Wastesaver.
His innovative “dumpy” device, made of metal tubing, held four different coloured bags into which households sorted their waste. With the co-operation of Kirklees council, the sorted material was collected from 20,000 homes and taken to a disused mill in Huddersfield for recycling. The project revealed for the first time the public’s appetite for such schemes. When the collection of waste became unviable due to fluctuations in commodity prices, Wastesaver changed tack to deal with clothes and textiles.
Wastesaver still operates today, from a huge warehouse in Batley, West Yorkshire, where many of the clothes donated to Oxfam shops and clothing banks are sorted and recycled.
Jon’s publications sold all over the world, serving as handbooks to community organisations and governments on how to reclaim waste. In the 1980s, with funding from the Commonwealth and the United Nations, he undertook research into the reuse of waste materials. His consultancy, Interwaste, aimed to help people in developing countries.
He was born in Hackney, north-east London, son of Sidney Vogler, a public health inspector, and his wife, Thérèse (nee Jinks). Their Jewish-Catholic marriage was unusual for the time. After attending Haberdashers’ Aske’s school in Hampstead on a state scholarship, Jon gained a degree in aeronautical engineering from Bristol University.
He was among the first Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) volunteers and helped to finish building and then taught at the multiracial Bernard Mizeki school in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Back in the UK, he took up an industrial fellowship with English Electric and married Jill Hughes, a doctor, in 1962.
In 1966, they moved to Nigeria, where Jon was resident engineer on the Kainji dam on the River Niger. The family returned to the UK the following year, and in 1971 settled in Leeds. From the mid-80s Jon’s focus shifted to computing, then cyber-security, when that concept was in its infancy. He became a prolific technology journalist and an expert witness testifying in industrial disputes and criminal cases.
In later life he gained a BA in fine art at Leeds Metropolitan University and an MA in contemporary art practice at Leeds College of Art, specialising in letter-cutting and sculpting in wood and stone. Jon and Jill’s sculpture-filled garden hosted many charity events, often in support of refugees. For almost two decades, too, Jon led volunteer working parties of the Friends of Roundhay Park, and for this he was awarded a British Empire Medal in 2014.
Although his energy gradually decreased, his curiosity remained undimmed after he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a consequence of his early career in industrial engineering.
He is survived by Jill, their three daughters, Miranda, Pen and me, and son, Justin, five grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
