HippoBags ..

[Jethro_uk]

Next week is project "clear the garage". Plan has evolved from multiple trips to the LA recycling facility, through to arrange for someone else to do the heavy lifting.

Looking at HippoBags at the moment, but I notice they are sniffy about paint (I have several half-used tins of various substances) and mattresses (which I also have one off). If I have to start separating out my waste and taking some myself to the LA, then it starts to look like I may as well save myself £95 and do the lot.

Are skips less fussy ? Seems to me the other alternative is hire a 4yd skip, for a few quid more.

The vast majority of the rubbish is bits of wood, and MDF accummulated over many years of breaking down flat-packs and thinking "that piece looks useful".

[Jabba]

Jethro_uk scribbled...

You can hide all kinds of shit in a skip. My LA tip takes paint separately and puts it in a shed for anyone to take.

[Tim Watts]

Skips are relatively unfussy (our local firm no longer care about plasterboard).

However, mattresses and fridges will almost certainly get a surcharge.

[Jethro_uk]

I wouldn't mind , but it's not a real mattress - it's a roll up foam one : (

[Robin]

Discussion t'other night came up with what seemed to be an ideal use for such paint as it both saved on energy costs and was good for the environment. It was to throw the paint over solar panels on other folk's rooves.

That should reduce payments of feed-in tariffs - hence saving on heating costs.

And it avoids paint going into landfill which is good for the environment.

On sober reflection I can see a potential problem or 2 but I offer it in the hope you or others can make it work ;)

Otherwise around here you just put it out by the gate and someone usually takes it.

[Jethro_uk]

I've already done that ... lost a patio heater, a box of assorted metal bits, an office chair, a bed frame and as a sweetener, a couple of old lead-gel batteries ;)

[Andy Burns]

Or some drunk on the way home from the pub boots it all over the path/wall/car ...

[The Medway Handyman]

I've put several cans of paint in a Hippo Bag before, hidden under other stuff & had no problems or comeback.

[Adam Funk]

Hmm. I've got a leaky radiator out front labelled "FREE SCRAP --- PLEASE TAKE" in Sharpie ... which is starting to fade from the weater.

[harryagain]

Most recycle places have separate skips for wood/fibre board and plasterboard now recycled) Fridges are put on one side for the gas to be removed. Mattresses go in the general waste. Everything is free at our local recycle centre.

[Davey]

You need to make it look as though it's valuable. Mark it somewhere to imply that it's from a Mk. 2 Jag or an Austin-Healey.

[Adrian]

Or just "For Sale - £10 - ask inside"

[Davey]

Our local one was dis-inherited by the council, and is now run by a private company. Anything recyclable is free to deposit, just about anything else is £6 per car-load. I have taken broken glass and shredded paper there, as well as miscellaneous building rubble.

[Tim Watts]

I didn't know the were allowed to charge for that.

Our's is contracted out to Veolia - but it's "free" (funded by council tax).

[Robin]

You may perhaps have missed the "now run by a private company."

The same happened in Suffolk where 'er indoors' mother lives in Suffolk. So it's now either a 20 mile round trip to the council site or 4 for a car (6 for an estate, 10 for a small trailer or van) at the private site 2 miles away.

With London traffic it'd be even worse for us in London if we used our Borough's site. But we're quite near another Borough's and I am always very polite and grateful to the staff there (especially near Xmas) and they oddly have yet to ask for proof I live in their Borough.

[Andy Burns]

Yeah, run by as in subcontracted to; whoever wrote up the contract wants voting-out if they charge for "normal" household stuff.

The one here has recently been rebuilt and outsourced, as you drive in you go up a ramp, and all the skips for different recycling is arranged in a circuit so you just throw stuff down into them as you go round, they have more categories than before and it's a safer site. Shame they've reduced the hours and days it's open in winter months, but it's about the same in summer months.

AFAIK the only thing they charge for is the compost the make from the garden refuse.

[GMM]

Given the size of the queues at my local tip, I reckon I'd spend the cost of a skip in fuel just waiting to get in for teh number of trips it would take. I reckon a roll up foam mattress could easily be converted to a few squares of cut up foam in the bottom of the skip that compressed down with everything else on top of it.

[Davey]

This one is in Suffolk, near Eye. Look for the four huge wind turbines as you drive up the A140, and note how many of them are turning at any one time. Hint: very rarely all four.

[Davey]

Our one rarely has a large queue, as far as I see as I drive past. I have used it twice, and both times I drove straight in. Considering that normal rubbish is collected during normal bin days, there is little need for using this place, and £6 is not at all a problem. It's certainly cheaper than hiring a skip. Mattresses and fridges should be taken away by the boys who deliver the new ones. It's also a designated Electrical Recycling Point, or whatever that WEEE thing is, so anything electrical that fits in your car costs nothing to get rid of.

[GMM]

That's how it used to be here. Then they introduced a charge for collecting green waste and you can't get near the place any longer. I went last week with some waste from a job on the house and decided to try someone's suggestion of turning up at opening time (8am) on a weekday. Still queued for 45 mins and ended up slinking into work late...