Household tips and DIY waste

[Donkmeister]

Recently we went to our local tip with a boot-full of rubble. Pulled up next to the skip marked "HARDCORE AND RUBBLE" and started emptying the sacks.

Just as we are emptying the last few bags, tip employee arrives and shouts "That's DIY waste, that is, you can't dump that here!". At first I thought I'd got the wrong skip, but no, that wasn't it. The guy wasn't making much sense but as we had couple of few boot-fulls to get rid of at home I thought I better see if the foreman could shed any light on what I could and couldn't dump...

According to the foreman and a sign he pointed me at, our council (Central Bedfordshire) now regards hardcore and rubble from DIY as "non-household waste", so if a householder wants to dump waste rubble from his house in the rubble bin at the household waste site, he must limit himself to one small rubble sack unless he has a permit... if you get the permit you can dump up to 600 litres of rubble (which I reckon is about 1 tonne), but only in ONE visit. The foreman's opinion was that they are trying to push people into ordering skips for any sort of DIY.

From some googling it seems this has come in over the last 6 months or so - some councils are charging per item or per visit for things such as plasterboard and rubble... They aren't even weighing in and out, but letting staff guess how much you've dumped and charging for that!!!

Who else has come across this ridiculousness?

 

[Jadele]

Me - it is the same in rossendale where I used to live, put it in black bag and top it off with a few random items and launch it all in non recyclable

 

[Deleted member 174758]

All this sort of beaurocratic carp succeeds in doing is to increase fly tipping

 

[ladylola]

Came in by us recently too. Our local council now charge something like £3 for a bag of rubble or a single piece like a sink , £4 for a bag or sheet of plasterboard and £4 for a tyre. I can see the logic in charging for tipping , councils having less money to spend and trying to get us to dump less stuff , but I agree with J&K in that it's probably an I'll thought out policy that could increase fly tipping.
Seeing as they charge for tyres by us perhaps we'll start to see these appearing again ,
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=g...&hl=en-gb&client=safari#imgrc=xVSb6VLRAF4NMM:

 

[Gerrydelasel]

Same in Burnley. Here you can get a free permit to dump ten sacks of rubble or plasterboard per car registration, per year. After that you have to pay.

I find it odd that they choose to pick on rubble. I mean, you pay council tax to take away your household rubbish. If you produce too much, you go to the tip and you can dump more rubbish for free, even though you've paid the council to dispose of a 'normal' household amount in wheelie bins. Why don't they charge for all that unrecyclable 'excess' rubbish instead, rather than inert rubble (stone, earth etc) which is basically just stuff that is being returned to the earth from whence it came? I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

 

[Ian H]

At Rochdale you can dump anything except plaster board.

We have taken loads over the last 6 months, and brought some stuff back.

 

[conny]

They have brought charges in in Suffolk for certain items, (plasterboard, rubble, tyres etc), but one thing they are very strict about is removing anything from the skips. Saw a guy forced to throw a shelf unit back in the wood skip one day under threat of prosecution for theft if he didn't. When another 'customer' pointed out one of the employees removing a chair from the charity container he was told it was not going off site but into the office. He failed to see the irony of it.

 

[Ian H]

You would think they would encourage people to take stuff so they have less to deal with.

My missus came home with some shoe racks, the guys at the tip even helped her put them in the car.

 

[Brigadier]

Recently introduced £4 per sheet charge for plasterboard here.

 

[HawkEye244]

About time for that wealth re-distribution. It's coming folks. It's coming.

 

[Donkmeister]

Same in Burnley. Here you can get a free permit to dump ten sacks of rubble or plasterboard per car registration, per year. After that you have to pay.

I find it odd that they choose to pick on rubble. I mean, you pay council tax to take away your household rubbish. If you produce too much, you go to the tip and you can dump more rubbish for free, even though you've paid the council to dispose of a 'normal' household amount in wheelie bins. Why don't they charge for all that unrecyclable 'excess' rubbish instead, rather than inert rubble (stone, earth etc) which is basically just stuff that is being returned to the earth from whence it came? I dunno. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

I think that's a pretty good idea - not just because my wheelie bin is rarely more than half full!

Sounds like plenty of you are in areas where councils are charging for all sorts of rubbish, hopefully my lot don't cotton on to that!!!

 

[Doggit]

In Thanet small traders could get into the local tip quite happily, then the council decided it was costing them too much, so they banned all vans, told the car owners they could use small trailers, but couldn't bring in more than 6 sacks of rubble in one visit, but you could do several visits in one day, so you're increasing pollution?????

The rubble goes to the road builders for hardcore, the plasterboard goes to be recycled into new plasterboards, whilst the wood goes for composting, but vans still aren't allowed to do any recycling whatsoever, not even paper and cardboard. They supposedly did a consultation asking the local users and traders what they wanted, but as it was the small traders that got kicked out, we knew it was all a foregone conclusion.

The local trade recyclers charge a minimum of £30 plus vat, even for just 1 bag of waste, but the council didn't bother trying to get the charges down, so there's been an increase in fly tipping which then costs them more than the trade waste would have, but that's how councils think I'm afraid.

But it still sounds as though I'm doing better and some of you.

 

[noseall]

Rarely use the tip.
There are loads of tradespeople who abuse the local tips - I've seen them. I wouldn't think twice about hiring a skip for large amounts of household waste. There is not a chance in hell that I would faff about taking several heavy sacks of rubble etc down to the tip. And I live close to our tip.

I guess if I was retired and had nothing better to do, then maybe I'd consider using the tip more.

 

[ladylola]

I think that's a pretty good idea - not just because my wheelie bin is rarely more than half full!!

If I relied on filling the bin with my own rubbish then mine wouldn't go out for months at a time. Most goes in the recycling or is composted or goes on the fire. My bin is normally full of other people's rubbish , stuff I've cleaned up on jobs , sorted first and then thrown away the absolute minimum.

 

[wobs]

All this sort of beaurocratic carp succeeds in doing is to increase fly tipping

^^This.

Limiting the amount of waste a householder can dispose will increase flytipping.

Charging for plasterboard disposal = More flytipping.

Having a separate skip at the tip for plasterboard = Essential.

The only rational for limiting inerts for householders is to clamp down on trades disposing of waste while claiming to be householders, but this seems counterproductive.