For many, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an opportunity to sort out home improvement projects for which they had previously lacked the time. And, of course, the downside of this is finding suitable disposal for the large amounts of waste that projects like these generate; however, in Manchester and the surrounding areas like Oldham and Trafford, you can easily book a skip online to prepare for your next spring clean or renovation project.
Hiring a Skip for Bulky Items
The Cambridge Dictionary defines spring cleaning as cleaning “all of a place, especially your house, very well, including parts you do not often clean”. To spring clean can also simply mean “to organise something, getting rid of the things you do not need”.
Unfortunately, though, some objects up for disposal can pose the problem of finding adequate removal. For example, while paper waste like newspaper, cardboard and paper packaging is unlikely to be overly arduous to handle, your heart may understandably sink if, during your annual spring clean, you decide it’s finally time to get rid of a sofa or chair that is damaged beyond repair. How are you supposed to get rid of that?
Plenty of other possibilities abound. Perhaps a son or daughter has recently moved out of the home, leaving behind a bed and bedside table you no longer have a practical use for. Alternatively, your microwave or vacuum cleaner might have permanently broken – leading you to buy a new one whilst remaining stumped about how to dispose of the old one, which you might not be able to sell.
The situation could be even worse if you have accumulated a wide range of waste as a result of undertaking DIY work in your home. You could currently have surplus plasterboard, bricks, mortar and glass strewn about various rooms.
Basically, if your household waste includes bulky items you wouldn’t be able to fit in your usual rubbish bin or recycling bin, you will need to arrange for a waste removal service to take those unwanted items off your hands – or, more to the point, off your land.
Yes, it would likely have to be your own, private land – unless a skip permit was obtained, specifying that you have been granted legal permission to keep a skip on a public road. If you want to hire a skip from us but you lack any private land – like a driveway – on which the skip could be practically placed, you might have no option but to seek a skip permit.
In the interest of public safety, including that of traffic and pedestrians, the Highways Act 1980 requires homeowners to have a skip licence in place before arranging for a skip to be positioned on a public road. Fortunately, we have prepared a detailed guide to how this licence can be obtained.
Even if a skip permit is granted, you would only be able to use it for the specific skip you are hiring and exactly where and when the applicant has said they seek to place it. However, if the permit application succeeds, you would be able to start filling your skip to the brim.
What could you fill it with? We have already mentioned quite a few examples – but others include doors, fridge freezers, cookers and mattresses at an additional charge. Rest assured that, whatever type of household waste you want to get rid of, we have a suitable size of skip available.
An Environmentally Friendly Way to Dispose of Waste
Another incentive to look for skip hire services when you have excess household waste is that providers of these services know how to dispose of it without damaging the environment. Therefore, you can avoid engaging, whether deliberately or accidentally, in ‘fly-tipping’ – that is, illegally depositing waste at a site lacking a licence to accept it.
When people do resort to fly-tipping, it is often due to the perceived ‘hassle’ of finding a site that indeed has a licence to accept waste. However, fly-tipping is a short-sighted approach that comes at a huge cost to the planet.
For example, if the waste includes dangerous chemicals, these could contaminate the soil and, as a possible consequence, harm local wildlife. This nonchalant method of waste disposal can also inconvenience locals and even risk their health by attracting flies and pests.
Even if you were to overlook the dubious ethics of fly-tipping, it would pose a major financial risk to yourself, as there is no specific fine for unlawfully disposing of waste on UK land. Instead, it is left to the courts to decide what financial penalty should apply.
It is worth emphasising that, as a licensed skip hire company, we will be able to accurately discern for ourselves what kinds of waste you have placed in the skip when we come to collect it again. Hence, we can make sure all of this waste is disposed of with ecological concerns in mind.
Once we have retrieved the skip from your home, the container will be taken to a local waste transfer station so that staff there can closely examine the contents. Some of these could be recyclable – in which case, they will eventually be sent to a local recycling centre.
However, the skip could also potentially be found to contain hazardous materials, such as asbestos, batteries or medical waste. As it would be dangerous for materials like these to be left on a landfill site, our team will make sure they are delivered to a more appropriate place.
Essentially, the more waste we can keep away from landfill sites, the better for the environment. Fortunately, when you book our domestic skip hire services, a specialist can help you to help them. For example, if you are uncertain what can and can’t be placed in one of our skips, you can ask our delivery team for clarification.
Household waste you would be able to transfer to the skip include furniture, plastic bottles, paper, cardboard and clothes. However, not all of your home’s waste could be from inside the building proper…
If you are particularly green-fingered, you might have been busy overhauling various parts of your garden – and generated a wide variety of garden waste in the process. Though garden debris comprises about 14% of the average household bin’s contents, you might not have realised that most types of garden waste are actually strong candidates for recycling.
Examples include grass, flowers, hedge cuttings, weeds and bark – any of which a specialist company would be able to turn into compost. This, in turn, could be used to nourish soil and so help plants to grow – a great way garden ‘waste’ can be seamlessly returned to the earth.
Save Time and Effort
You might be well aware of the importance of taking various eco-friendly measures but – understandably, given the fast pace of modern life – lack enough time to research everything you should do to reduce the strain your waste disposal methods place on the planet.
This is why, with our skip hire services, we always arrange for eligible materials to be responsibly recycled. We can also save more of your precious time – and help you to cut down on your carbon emissions – by preventing you from having to make multiple trips yourself to a tip.
Such repeated journeys could initially seem necessary if, say, you have pursued a major construction project at your home and amassed an awful lot of waste as a result. However, if renovation projects are a common thing at your property, we can help to significantly lower the average time it would take you to (responsibly) clear waste materials from your residence after the renovation work.
As we have previously mentioned, you could need a skip licence if you don’t have any particular private land on which the skip could be placed for as long as you need it. However, in many instances, obtaining this licence can be surprisingly straightforward.
Depending on the rules imposed by your local governing authority, you might not even need to apply for the licence yourself. We offer skip hire in Manchester as well as a wide array of other geographic areas near the Greater Manchester city – such as Prestwich, Whitefield and Limeside.
In many parts of England, the skip hire business itself is responsible for obtaining the permit. Fortunately, it’s easy to check, on the UK Government’s website, whether your own local council would require you to send the application.
The application will be sent to the local authority, who will assess it on the strength of various safety factors, such as how wide and busy the road is and therefore whether the skip could cause a major obstruction there. Also taken into account will be the skip’s proximity to the property.
You could be fined if you hire a skip for which a permit is not in place. Also, even once a skip permit has been granted, particular terms and conditions will apply to its usage – and our friendly team can easily guide you on these if any terms have left you confused.
Hire a Skip for Your Spring Clearout Today!
We offer a wide range of skip sizes – from four cubic yards, which can hold about 30-50 full bin bags, to 16 cubic yards, which are capable of accommodating as many as 170-200 bin bags full of household waste. If you are unsure which skip size would be best for your particular needs, please phone us on 0161 647 7668. When you feel ready, you can click here to book a skip online.
