Skip Hire near you

There is a specific statutory instrument about this and it is rarely mentioned in the trade: the Builders' Skips (Markings) Regulations 1984, which have applied since 1 January 1986. They require a marking on each end of every builder's skip any part of which is placed on any part of a highway other than a footway or a verge, complying with the design set out in the diagrams and notes in Schedule 1 and the requirements in Schedule 2.

The specification is precise. The marking consists of two plates of equal size, each complying with the British Standard Specification for Rear Marking Plates for Vehicles issued by the British Standards Institution, BS AU 152:1970. The stippled areas of the diagram are to be of red fluorescent material and the unstippled areas of yellow reflex reflecting material. The markings must be kept clean and efficient, and must be clearly visible for a reasonable distance to persons using the highway, except while doors are open for loading and unloading.

This sits alongside, and is separate from, the permission to place a skip on a highway at all, which comes from section 139 of the Highways Act 1980 and is dealt with in the concrete driveways guide on this site. In practice a reputable hire company arranges both, and includes the permit fee in the quotation. The reason to know the markings rule exists is that it is a quick test of who you are dealing with: a skip delivered onto a road with no end markings, or with faded ones, is a skip from a company cutting corners.

The list of exclusions is longer than most people expect and it is not arbitrary. Fridges and freezers, tyres, batteries, paint and liquids, solvents, gas cylinders, electrical items and anything containing asbestos are all handled under separate arrangements and must be kept out of a general skip. So must anything that would make the load hazardous, because a hazardous load changes where the whole skip can go and what it costs to process.

Plasterboard is the one that catches homeowners out on a refurbishment, and the reason is specific. GOV.UK guidance on disposing of waste to landfill, which applies to England, states that you must not send gypsum-based waste, for example plasterboard, to a landfill cell that accepts biodegradable waste, and that it should be separated for re-use or recovery in line with the waste hierarchy. Where it does go to landfill, the operator has to have a separate cell that does not accept biodegradable waste. That is why skip companies ask for plasterboard to go into its own container or bag, and why a skip found to contain it attracts a sorting charge.

Two other points are worth stating plainly. Do not overfill: a skip has to travel on a public road, and a load above the rim is both refused and, if it is taken, a risk that lands on the driver. And keep in mind that where your waste ends up is not entirely someone else's concern — the householder's duty of care for waste leaving the property is set out in the garden maintenance guide on this site, and is a reason to hire from a company that can produce its waste carrier registration.

A skip earns its place where you are producing waste over days or weeks and need somewhere to put it as you go. That continuous availability is the whole value, and it is why a skip is the right answer for a kitchen strip-out, a loft clearance or a garden reconstruction even when a single van load would hold the volume.

A grab lorry is usually better for soil, rubble and hardcore, particularly where the material can be heaped in one place and reached over a wall or a hedge. It loads a far greater weight than a skip and avoids the siting problem entirely, but it arrives, loads and leaves, so everything has to be ready. Skip bags split the difference: delivered flat, filled at your pace, collected by a lorry with a crane, and they take up much less space, at the cost of a smaller capacity.

For a single load of household items rather than construction waste, a registered waste carrier with a van is often quicker and cheaper than any container, because you are buying labour as well as disposal. The one thing that matters whichever you choose is that the person taking the waste away is a registered carrier and can say where it is going — a point covered in full in the garden maintenance guide.

Skip pricing is driven by disposal cost and by logistics. The variables are the size of the container, the type of waste and how it will have to be processed, whether the skip sits on private ground or on the highway and therefore whether a permit and its fee are involved, the hire period and any extension, how far the depot is from you, how awkward the delivery and collection positions are, and whether any material has to be separated. Heavy waste such as soil and rubble is often priced differently from light mixed waste, because weight rather than volume is the constraint.

LokalMatch is the introduction and nothing beyond it. Describe the job, the kind of waste it will produce and where a skip could stand, once, with your postcode, and skip hire and waste companies covering your area can respond. Homeowners pay nothing to use LokalMatch; pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does not supply skips, does not set prices and does not vet, rank or recommend anyone who gets in touch, so checking waste carrier registration and what each quotation covers stays with you.