So, you rented a skip to hold all your rubbish for your renovation, cleanup, or any other activity. They’re great to have since they can hold a lot of unwanted waste for you. However, there’s one slight problem. There’s a lot more rubbish than you realise, and you’re tempted to overload your skip with them. Is that okay?
Put simply, no, it’s not okay. You shouldn’t overload your skip for any reason. Why? Well, let’s talk about that:
Why Should I Not Overload My Skip?
If you overload your skip, you can jeopardise your safety. Why? Overloading your skip can lead to accidents because it’ll tilt, which you don’t want. If you’re too heavy-handed with loading it, it’s also more likely that things will just fall out of it.
Apart from that, overloading your skip will also make it too heavy to transport safely. It can even damage the trucks that are supposed to lift it and handle them, and the last thing you want to do is put the safety of your collectors in harm’s way. They may even refuse to collect it for you or charge you more for the inconvenience.
In addition, an overloaded skip can also be a threat to the general public. This is because an overloaded skip will likely have waste extending over its walls which can present a health and safety risk to anyone near it.
How Much Rubbish Is Too Much For My Skip?
Put simply, your waste shouldn’t go over the sides of the skip. More than likely, there will be a line on the walls to give you a rough idea of how high you can fill the skip. If you go over this line, you can run into trouble.
If you do go over the line, remove the waste on top and throw it away later.
How Can I Prevent Overloading My Skip?
The best way to ensure you don’t end up overloading a skip is to plan properly beforehand. This includes estimating how much rubbish you’re going to throw away and renting a properly-sized skip for the job. But of course, apart from this, once you do have a skip, here are the many other ways you can ensure you don’t end up overloading the skip:
1. Break Or Dismantle Your Rubbish First
If you’re throwing away a lot of things that cannot fit in a small box, you should consider breaking or dismantling them first to fit them into your skip. That way, you can fit more items without overfilling the skip.
2. Put Lightweight Rubbish At The Bottom
Always put the lightweight waste into the bottom of your skip first. Why? Well, if they’re on top, it is likely that they’re going to fall out. Plus, with light items below, such as cardboard and stuff, the heavier items can sit on top and compress the lighter items further.
In that logic, you can create layers of waste, where a heavy object will always be on top of a lighter item to compress it further and save more space to ensure nothing overflows the skip.
3. Lay Large Objects Flat
If you’re throwing away something like a door, always lay them flat. If you don’t and you stand them up instead, they’re going to rise over the skip. This is a safety risk that you must avoid. Also, lay these large objects on top of lighter waste to maintain what we’ve said in our second tip.
4. Make Sure The Skip Is Full From Side To Side
If you just fill the skip with rubbish from top to bottom, you’re going to regret it later when it doesn’t fit in its transport. You should make sure the skip is full from side to side to prevent overloading yourself.
5. Keep It Light
The heavier the skip, the more likely it is to tip over. As such, make sure you don’t put heavy objects like bricks and tiles in your skip. Keep it light to ensure it’s safe and undamaged to save you from having to replace it.
Are There Any Other Alternatives To A Skip?
There are a couple of alternatives you can go for rather than hire a skip, or if you need an extra solution to take care of any stuff that may not fit your skip. For example, you can just as easily take the extra rubbish to the local council’s recycling centre, or you can hire a tipper van and dispose of your rubbish via a commercial yard.
Apart from that, you can also hire a waste clearance firm to grab your rubbish and throw it away from you. But of course, if you just need these things as an extra solution, you can avoid them in the first place by ensuring you properly measure how many items you need to throw and buy a proper skip size for it.
How Do I Pick The Right Skip Size?
More often than not, the company you’re going to hire the skips from will have guides on their site. For example, a 3-tonne skip may hold up to 30 bags of rubbish, while an 8-tonne skip can hold up to 90 bins of rubbish. Of course, there are larger skips, but those will start to measure in yards, where a 12-cubic yard skip can hold up to 120 bags of rubbish.
Also, apart from skip size, there are skip types too. Generally, you’ll run into open skips and enclosed skips. Open skips are the more common type of skips, where the top area is open. An enclosed skip, on the other hand, has a door-like feature where you can open and close a skip.
Conclusion
So, there you go. There are plenty of reasons why you shouldn’t overload your skip, and hopefully, you’ll take heed of our advice to ensure it doesn’t happen to you! Always make sure to plan beforehand the waste you’re getting rid of to ensure you pick the right skip size. But of course, if you aren’t sure, it never hurts to rent one that’s slightly bigger than what you think you’ll need. Having extra space is better than having too little, ensuring everything can be tossed away safely!
Enviro Skip Hire is a skip hire and aggregate company servicing in Staffordshire. If you are looking for skip hire, get in touch with us today!
