It’s Time For A Clear Out

When it comes to turfing out your rubbish, you’ll often find that the traditional skip hire company nowadays have branched out. The simple ‘throw it in a skip, stick it in ground fill’ is quite dated when there’s potential use again for a plastic crate or old tyre.

Often skip hire companies will section off your waste at their end into aggregates, plant material, plastics, electricals and recycle them correctly. The end goal here is to reduce what goes into landfill.

The price of normal skip hire still remains, but make sure you know where your rubbish ends up when choosing a local skip company.

Freecycle

Whilst recycling promotes being green and environmentally aware, what about community spirit and kindness? Boost your good factor further with Freecycle.

This scheme has been around for a few years now and is different in that it lets users get rid of the wares they no longer need but on a condition… everything is given away for free.

As an example, a student house departing for the final time might not need their dining table any longer. Sticking it on freecycle means they can get rid of it without any stress.

The ‘downside’ to not getting anything for it could well mean you would be better off on eBay, but items often get snapped up super quick, often people are willing to collect, and you can certainly pat yourself on the back for the good deed you’re doing. Equally, should you ever find yourself in need , the generous Freecycle community will come as a welcome reassurance.

Scrap Metal

Whilst skip hire and Freecycle can often leave you no better off, what about going direct and selling your unwanted metal to a scrap metal merchant?

The scrap metal industry is booming at the minute but only if you’ve got something worth having! Example include the metal legs of office chairs, old copper boilers, an old radiator. A quick Google for scrap metal agents in your area should give you an idea of what to hunt down.

Salvage

When getting rid of older items, for example, an old cast iron radiator, a salvage yard might be a worthy option.

Yards around the country are great places to deposit doors, bath tubs, chimney pots, roof tiles, old chairs and wardrobes. The list goes on! You’d be surprise what is one man’s waste and another man’s treasure.

Whilst salvaging one item is doable, what about the rest of your rubbish? Nowadays, a number of reclamation services will take away all of your unwanted items, desirable or not, as long as they keep the proceeds that they make from the good stuff. You get waste disposal for free, they manage to sell some of it later on.

Ebay

The popular online destination remains the number one place to sell your unwanted stuff online.

What’s great about eBay is that it’s great for both first time and experienced sellers – you’ll often find the big brand names on there with discounted items thanks to the massive audience ebay commands.

You are in control of everything including how long the auction remains open, whether you want to charge for postage & packaging or if the item is available at a fixed price.

The range of items on eBay is massive, but there are a few rules that need to be considered e.g. no knives or weapons, food items are not permitted etc.

eBay runs the sister company Paypal which provides both buyers and sellers support for money transactions. Just beware of scammers overseas trying to dupe you into a sale.

Reuse

Ever thought about reusing rather than removing?

That the stack of plastic takeaway boxes you have from endless Chineses and Indians could be used for something else, like a section divider for pens in a drawer, or a container for screws and nails.

Your old t-shirt could be cut up into rags for dusting, window cleaning and car polishing.

Carrier bags that pile up after shopping could be used as liners for smaller bins, or if you’re imaginative, as a unique wrapping paper!