Rubbish Removal Prices Guide

Looking for advice on rubbish removal prices and what to pay for your LoveJunk clearance? Read this article to understand all the key factors that affect the price of a waste removal job. Then click on the green button link at the bottom to see lots of examples of actual waste collections (you can sort by junk type) and how much customers paid. 

Factors impacting Rubbish Removal Prices

• Size of Load - bigger loads increase price
• Weight - heavier materials increase price
• Fridge or Mattress - cost more to dispose of
• Reuse, Resale & Valuable junk - reduce price (but only if it's true!!) 
• Urgency - costs more
• Time slot/day - narrow timeslots & out of hours cost more
• Access - awkward access costs more
• Solo lift - reduces price
• Listing time - most collectors aren't checking their phones on Sundays, bank holidays or in the middle of the night!

Size - how much rubbish do you have? 

The more waste you have, the more you pay.  This is because larger loads take longer to load (and therefore incur more labour cost) and cost the collector more to dispose of . Note that unlike householders, waste collection businesses must pay to dispose of the waste - so more waste means more disposal cost.

Weight – how heavy is the waste?

Collectors are charged by weight (not volume) when they dispose of waste at commercial recycling facilities. So, if your job contains a significant proportion of very heavy, dense rubbish (eg. soil, bricks, sawdust, logs, wet leaves, concrete, gravel, carpet tiles), then expect to pay more than you would for the same volume of much lighter waste. Equally, if your waste is very light (eg. packaging, polystyrene, duvets, empty boxes), the cost of collection will be lower. Note: the Tradesman/DIY waste option on the Create Listing page is there to identify heavier items.

Fridge or Mattress adds £15-£30 to the removal price 

Fridges and mattresses (unless they can be reused) cost more to dispose of than ‘normal’ waste. This is because of what they are made of and therefore how difficult they are to recycle.  So, collectors require a premium to collect them. As a rough guide, expect to pay £15 - £30 more for your collection per fridge or mattress it includes than you would do if your junk did not include one.

Sofa or Upholstered Furniture increases the removal price 

Sofas and other soft furnishing like an upholstered chair or cushions (unless they can be reused) cost more to dispose of than ‘normal’ waste. This is because they contain POPs (persistent organic pollutants) and have to be disposed of in a certain way.  As a result, waste collectors require more money to collect them. Broadly speaking, a job which contains a sofa compared to one that doesn't can cost £20-£50 more.

Reuse, Resale & Valuable Junk - reduces the cost of a collection

If your waste includes material that can be resold, then the collection price will reflect this. A reasonable amount of metal (in particular copper and brass) will have scrap value.  So, highlighting this clearly in your listing description or additional detail section and making sure it is clearly visible in your photos, should help reduce removal price. Equally, genuinely reusable items (like a nice, clean and undamaged or stained sofa) should lead to a low or even no price. But please bear in mind that just classifying something as 'reusable' does not magically make it valuable or free to collect!

Urgency - expect to pay a premium for very quick pick-ups (unless you get lucky)

Expect to pay more if you need rubbish removed very quickly (ie. same day). Giving collectors a reasonable amount of notice (eg. collection day of Wednesday if you publish your listing on Monday) will help reduce your collection price.  

Time slot and day of week - narrow or unsociable pickup windows add to the rubbish removal price

Collection time can significantly impact rubbish removal price. If you select a flexible timeslot (anytime, AM or PM) on a weekday, there should be plenty of collector interest and no premium will be required.  But, choose a weekend or Bank holiday and/or narrow timeslot and you will probably have to pay a bit more. Equally, if you select a time likely to be very popular with other customers (eg. 07:00 – 09:00 on Monday or Saturday morning), prices may be higher because most collectors are already busy and capacity is low.

Access & Location - removal of rubbish that's easy to access will be cheaper

Easy access and location normally mean lower prices because the job takes less time to load. Difficult locations and access mean more time spent on site which increases a collector’s cost, which in turn means they will normally require a higher price.

Solo lift - if one person can collect the price will be lower

Including in your job notes that the junk can be lifted by one person will help give the price down. Some collectors only operate as one-man teams, so ‘solo lift jobs’ can be done by a wider pool of collectors which also increases supply and therefore lowers prices.

PS. Last but not least, please try to be as honest and accurate as possible when creating listings. It’s natural to be optimistic when deciding how much you should pay for a service, but wishing your job is small, light and easy doesn’t actually make it so. Creating a listing that doesn’t reflect reality will just end up wasting both your own time and that of the collector.