Skipandbin is a price comparison site for local skip companies. It’s a bit like GoCompare but for skips.

Suppliers enter their coverage area and rates for different skip sizes. Users enter their postcode and desired skip size to find the cheapest provider and book with them direct. The site earns income from charging skip companies click through fees.

The goal of skipandbin.com is to connect users with their nearest licensed skip supplier who, because of short delivery distance, should be able to offer the most competitive rates. It also allows skip companies with extra capacity to temporarily drop their rates or expand their coverage area to increase demand.

Hopefully the site will not only provide people with an instant way of finding a great price for a skip, but also help skip companies cut back on inefficient advertising spent on Google and Yell.

To encourage skip companies to test out the site we’re offering two months free trial if they register before 31 May 2012. Go to http://www.skipandbin.com/supplier-registration/.

Even though it’s very early days, there are already some great deals available on the site. So, if you need a skip and AnyJunk’s man and van solution isn’t appropriate, please do check out the site. For example, it’s already got some amazing London skip hire prices.

Feel free to tweet, ‘like’, and generally talk about skipandbin.com as much as possible, because the more people that know about it, the more attractive it will be to skip companies and the better the prices will be offered.

The changes are designed to make the City of London a cleaner, neater and more accessible place, and are part of various initiatives to make London look better and operate more efficiently in time for the London Olympics (see also what is planned for skip hire during the Olympics).

FAQs and more details from the City of London Corporation on the time banding changes to waste collection can be found here.

These changes to waste collection in the City are good news for AnyJunk because we specialise in on demand clearances of waste from anywhere outside or inside the premises. So businesses or residents who are unable to put waste out during the new hours specified by City of London Corporation can always call us up (0207 819 9000) to take their junk away at a time and from a room or storage area that is more convenient. In the City of London, just like the rest of London, we charge £40 per truck visit and £15 for every cubic yard of waste removed. So getting rid of 6 yards of waste would only cost £130 + VAT. Full pricing info can be found here.

Photo: GaryKnight

AnyJunk has made the shortlist for ‘Recycling & Waste Management Company of the Year’ in the National Recycling Awards for the third year in a row. The 2012 National Recycling Awards are the most prestigious awards in the UK waste management calendar, and we are extremely proud to have been chosen as a finalist alongside some of the very best companies in the industry.

The winner will be announced at the National Recycling Awards ceremony on 3 July 2012. Hopefully, it will be third time lucky for us!

Skip brokers contract out the supply of skips to local skip hire operators. They focus on winning business, managing customer relationship, and making sure the local skip hire companies meet agreed service standards. Normally a skip hire broker will have at least two and sometimes more skip hire companies on its books for every region throughout the UK. They negotiate discounted rates with each supplier on the back of the promise of high volumes of orders. The benefit of a skip broker having more than one skip company in each region is that they have alternatives if one supplier does not have sufficient capacity and also they create a bit of healthy competition when it comes to prices. The skip hire broker earns their money by adding a commission to the local skip company’s rates. Levels of commission charged by skip brokers will vary according to individual contracts but somewhere between £15 – £40 + Vat is not unusual. The result is that the price charged to the underlying client by the skip hire broker will be more than if they dealt with the local skip company direct, but this is reasonable given the administrative savings delivered to the customer of only having one person to call for all of their national skip needs.

Pros and cons of a skip broker to a skip hire company

Working for a skip broker can be a great way of increasing sales fast if you are a skip hire company looking to build your business. Whilst the rates paid by skip hire brokers are lower than dealing with a customer directly, the extra volume of business is not to be sneezed at. The downside is that working for a skip broker is not the same as working direct for their clients. If a skip hire broker find a cheaper skip company in your territory, you may suddenly be faced with a choice of losing a big chunk of your sales overnight or being forced to drop your rates substantially to retain business on which you have become reliant.

Pros and cons of skip hire brokers to a customer

As well as national coverage and multiple local suppliers (to ensure availability), skip hire brokers provide customers with comfort that their skip company is properly compliant in terms of how it is getting rid of the waste, and considerations like waste carrier licenses, health and safety processes, and insurances. To that end skip brokers will (or should) vet all new suppliers thoroughly and also conduct annual reviews to ensure all paperwork and procedures are up to date with best practise and current legislation. For anyone who doesn’t require a nationwide solution, the main other advantage of an online skip hire broker is their accessibility. Skip brokers like Topskips, SkippyHire and Yellowskips invest in online marketing and ensuring their websites are as customer friendly as possible. Local skip companies often lack the time or budget to do this. Obviously the main disadvantage of using a skip broker is the added expense of their commission. Also, having a third party in between you and the skip company can sometimes create greater chances of poor communication.

Yellowskips, TopSkips, Skippyhire, Tuxebo

Top Skips, Yellowskips and SkippyHire are the three skip brokers that are the most active on the web.

Top Skips has been around for several years. It was founded by Mark Attwood who has since set up similar sites for other hire services like toilet hire and generator hire. TopSkips helped by its sister website Skip Hire Magazine has always been very focused on search engine optimisation and the consumer market. Mark started Top Skips having left a career in marketing. He came back to take over the family skip business, but decided that becoming skip broker might be a lot easier than actually providing the skips himself. Top Skips was the first company to fully explore the online skip broker model.

Yellow skips came to the market much more recently. Yellowskips or Yellowskips.com Ltd is owned by Premier Waste, a Birmingham waste management and skip hire business of longstanding. The Yellow skips.com brand was created to differentiate itself from the rest of the business. You can order online with Yellowskips.com although the payment structure is split so you pay some to Yellowskips.com and some to the underlying skip provider when they deliver. This structure appears to be so that Yellowskips can avoid any liability claims if the skip company provides a poor service, which is understandable from Yellow skips’ perspective but might put off some customers.

Skippyhire.com or Skippy Hire is a very new site. Despite its ‘youth’ SkippyHire has jumped into top position on Google for the search term ‘skip hire’. Unlike Topskips and Yellow Skips and other well established skip brokers like Network Waste and Selectaskip, Skippyhire doesn’t appear to come from a skip hire or waste management background. Its website is very short on information although Skippy Hire does appear to have a couple of sister sites including Van Insurance Cheap which is a trading name of Quotefeed Ltd. This suggests its probably more about generating leads from the web than it is about providng skips, but maybe SkippyHire will add a little more content to its About Us page soon.

Finally there is Tuxebo which according to its website “helps connect people wanting to hire something with local hire providers. From tools and equipment to vehicles and people, Tuxebo quickly obtains up to 5 local quotes at the click of a button”. Tuxebo has been described as the ebay of services but perhaps a better way of descriving what Tuxebo does is to say it conducts reverse auctions for hire services, including skip hire. The main problem with the Tuxebo model which should in theory deliver rates much lower than a tradional skip brioker is time. Tuxebo takes a long time to get a quote. Once you’ve filled in your details to set up an account with Tuxebo, you then have to wait an average of 20 minutes for Tuxebo to contact their suppliers with your request and for the quotes to be returned.

AnyJunk compared to the Top Skips, Yellowskips.com, Tuxebo, Skippy Hire and others

The main difference between AnyJunk and skip hire brokers are that we don’t provide skips! Plus the vast majority of what we do, we do direct rather than subcontract. That means we don’t add commission and our communication tends to be a whole lot better. We realise that sometimes people want a skip rather than a man & van clearance service, but before you rush off to order from a skip broker, why not at least give us a call first. You never know, you might save some money and we guarantee you’ll save a whole lot of hassle.

Visit our website, call 0845 111 9000 or email us to learn more.

Image credits: Steve-H & hapticflapjack

• Aga
• Alloy wheels
• Barrels
• Baths – cast iron
• Bricks
• Builders waste
• Building materials
• Car batteries
• Commercial waste
• Concrete blocks
• DIY waste
• Fence panels/fencing
• Garage doors
• Gas bottles
• Generators
• Glass
• Green garden waste
• Mirrors
• Patio doors
• Paving slabs
• Pianos
• Plaster
• Plaster board
• Roofing materials
• Rubble
• Sheds
• Soil
• Stone or cast iron fireplaces
• Storage heaters
• Tiles
• Timber
• Tyres
• Windows
• Wood
• Items larger than 6ft long
• Items heavier than 30kg

AnyJunk’s ‘two-man and truck’ fast response service is perfect for getting rid of not just those things the council will take, but also bulky items that they won’t. We come when you want and will remove bulky waste from anywhere inside or outside your home. Our charges include all loading, sweep-up and environmentally responsible disposal.

Unlike a skip, we only charge for the amount of junk removed – so you don’t need to guess the size of container required beforehand. We always provide a precise quote before we start, and it’s completely obligation free – so if you don’t want to go ahead, just say thanks but no thanks.

For more information about how to get rid of unwanted bulky items, send us a message, call our friendly enquiries team on 0845 111 9000 or visit our website.

Source: Solihull Council
Photo credit: Ben Sutherland

Hopefully they make some people smile but they also help to explain what we do. We chose a white elephant because it’s associated with items that are no longer of use or value – usually when the cost of keeping the items outweighs the benefits of getting rid of them! Also, elephants are big guys who can carry a whole lot of stuff, just like our super-strong junk removal teams!

Local authority bulky waste collection streams are are typically collected by separate organisations but if you put them all together and had one specialist bulky waste collection organisation managing it, you would get huge economies of proximity and scale, which means lower costs of operation, less carbon footprint and greater opportunities for recycling. In other words, it would save councils money and be a great deal better for the environment. Download the full article here (PDF format).

Out of the 10 councils with the lowest number of fly-tips per capita, none provide a free residential bulky waste collection service, whereas several local authorities with a high number of fly-tips per capita offer the service for free.

Councils often arrange for separate contractors to collect the three main types of bulky waste: residential bulky waste, fly-tipped waste and void clearances. If a single specialist bulky waste contractor was engaged, the resultant economies of scale would result in a far more comprehensive and responsive solution and would provide the perfect commercial platform for councils to offer local businesses a low-cost solution for their bulky waste.

Read the full article from Waste Planning Journal here.

Photo credit: Aphexlee

Both cost money and take time to arrange. Residents and businesses cannot apply direct to Merton Council. The company providing you the skip must apply for you and will then add these extra fees to the basic skip hire price.

Skip Permit Licence Fees for Merton & Wimbledon
2 Weeks £35.00
4 Weeks £60.00

Controlled Parking Suspension Fees for Merton & Wimbledon
2 Weeks £42.00
4 Weeks £84.00

Note: higher ‘special’ parking charges apply for skips placed in Worple Road, Wimbledon (outside and opposite ‘Elys’), High Street, Wimbledon Village, Church Road, Wimbledon Village, or The Broadway, Wimbledon

5 days notice – Merton Council requires five working days notice to allow them to receive and log the request, inspect the site, arrange for any parking suspensions and approve and issue the licence. So remember to bear this mind when planning delivery of your skip.

Man & Van rubbish clearance doesn’t require any permits
Depending on the type of waste you’re getting rid of and the urgency, it may work out easier and cheaper to use a licensed man & van rubbish clearance company like AnyJunk as an alternative to skip hire or hippo bag in the Merton and Wimbledon area.

They load your rubbish into a truck and take it away for disposal. Rates are in line with skip hire prices but without the need for permits or parking suspension – plus, you only pay for the space used up and your neighbours don’t get a chance to fill it overnight!

Photo by Noel Foster

Some councils such as The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea successfully cracked down on the problem achieving an 88% reduction in reported cases, however there is still a lot more that can be done to tackle the problem.

We were surprised to find that measures such as free bulky waste collection, lower skip hire permits and stricter enforcement and sentencing have not had a major impact and local authorities are still spending around £36 million to clear illegally dumped waste.

It is clear that a 4.1% increase in enforcement action has played a more important role but the successful prosecution rate is still low at 0.4% and needs to be reviewed.

Click here to download the full report and if you have any suggestions about improving the way in which fly-tipping is dealt with in your area, we’d love to hear from you!