In many cases, when you hire a skip, you pay extra for heavy-weight rubbish. Unfortunately, water can add a lot of weight to skips, but there ways to keep the water weight out of your skip. Here are some tips to keep in mind.
1. Don't Throw Out Liquid Waste
The first step to reducing water weight is to not throw out any liquids. In fact, many skip hire companies do not allow you to put certain types of liquid waste in their skips. For example, hazardous liquids such as petrol, oil and chemicals are generally not allowed. You need to make special arrangements for this type of waste.
2. Dry Waterlogged Rubbish Before Putting Them in the Skip
Heavy droplets of water can also sneak into your skip on other items. To prevent that from happening, try to avoid putting waterlogged items into your skip. For instance, if you are hiring a skip to clean up your garden, try to rake leaves when they are dry rather than doing clean-up after a rain storm.
In other cases, it can be impossible to wait until items are dry. In particular, if you are cleaning out a home after flood damage has occurred, you may end up pulling out a lot of wet carpet or sodden gypsum board. To prevent that excess weight from getting into your skip, consider lying those items in the sun and letting them dry out for a while before putting them into the skip.
The pad under a carpet is like a sponge. If the home has been flooded, the pad can hold up to several times its own weight in water. By extension, if you put wet carpet into your skip, it is several times heavier than putting in dry carpet.
3. Cover the Skip to Prevent Rain From Getting In
You also don't want rain to get into the skip. To prevent that, close the lid on the skip when it's not in use. If you hire a skip that doesn't come with a lid, you may want to put the skip in a covered area — for instance, mini skips are small enough to be stored in garages during the hire period. For larger skips, use a waterproof tarp to cover them.
4. Know Where the Drain Is
Some skips have drains in the bottom of them. When you hire a skip, ask the hire company if there is a drain in the bottom of your skip and figure out where it's located. If the skip has a ramp for entry, you can just walk in and open the drain. Then, any liquid that's in the skip can pour out.
5. Be Careful About Releasing Toxins
However, if you keep the drain on the skip open, you have to remember that any water that gets released from the skip will also carry any toxins that are in the skip. You can't throw out e-waste, rubbish with asbestos or a range of other toxins. So you don't have to worry about those types of items.
However, there are toxins that are allowed in skips such as the toxins in the glue on the back of a carpet pad, and you don't necessarily want those toxins in your local waterways. To prevent that from happening, you may want to catch water that comes out of your skip with a bucket. Alternatively, you may want to use a wet-dry vacuum to remove excess water from around the skip.
If you're ready to hire a skip or if you want to get more tips on using skips safely, contact Backyard Bins today. We provide a range of skips in different sizes, ready to hold a range of weights to people in Perth and the surrounding area.
