Waste Removal case study

The situation

A retired fella rang me after his son had visited and told him, kindly, that the side of the house had become a hazard. He wanted waste Removal sorted before his grandkids came up for the school holidays, and there was a mix of mixed household and yard waste, timber, plaster and offcuts and metal, wire and fittings at a canal home on the Gold Coast.

Why the customer needed help

Their main worry wasn't the cost. It was not knowing what could legally go where, and not wanting to damage the house getting it all out. Both of those are part of the job for us.

What was at the property

By my count there were mixed household and yard waste, timber, plaster and offcuts and metal, wire and fittings, along with the usual loose odds and ends that build up around a job like this. It's typical of what we see from property owners with mixed piles of waste.

The initial assessment

I arrived at the property and the first thing I noticed was the access. Before I look at the pile, I walk the route it has to travel: doorways, steps, the driveway slope, overhead wires, where the truck can park. For this job I paced it out and worked out we'd need about two-thirds of the tipper.

How the job was planned

I gave them a fixed price there and then, based on volume, and explained what was included: single or multiple truck loads, mixed material handling and sorting and licensed transfer station disposal. They said yes on the spot, so we planned to load in one visit rather than two.

Preparation

We checked the weather, laid out the straps and blankets for anything worth saving, and agreed a hand signal for "stop" because the truck was right on the road.

Step 1

Step one was triage. We pulled everything into three groups: donate, recycle and dispose. It takes longer at the start, but it means the truck gets loaded in the right order and nothing good goes to landfill.

Step 2

Step two was the loose material. Bags, boxes and odds and ends went into the truck in layers, packed tight into the gaps around the furniture so we weren't carting air to the tip.

Step 3

Step three was loading the donation pile carefully, strapping it separately at the front of the tray so it would arrive at the charity in one piece.

Removal, sorting and loading

On the truck, heavy and flat things go on the bottom, long things go along the sides, and anything fragile for donation rides at the front where there's less bounce. Recycling stays in its own section so it can come straight off at the transfer station.

From the truck it went to a licensed transfer station, where recyclables were dropped off separately, and anything usable went to a local op shop before the tip run.

Challenges we ran into

There was a nest of ants under an old tarp, and a lot of the material was mixed in a way that made sorting slow.

How we handled them

We treated the ants, worked from the outside in, and sorted on the tray as we went rather than on the ground.

Completion and final result

When the last load was strapped down, the space was empty and swept. The customer walked through with me, signed off, and paid the price we'd agreed at the start, not a dollar more.

What I learned

What stuck with me was how much of it could be reused. People expect waste Removal to mean everything goes to landfill. On this job, close to a third of it went somewhere useful.