The future of skips

The trusted waste skip has been in use in mass since the ’60s and little has changed. They still look the same, still collected by the same types of vehicles, and still made from the same heavy steel.

Well since then we have made more use of the larger Roll on Off containers, using a different type of vehicle to lift them on and off-site and capable of carrying a larger volume of waste that is pretty much all that has changed.

Although more has been made of the man and van collections in recent years. The flexibility of the man and van service has seen a huge rise in this service across the UK and further afield. Some large man and van businesses have developed regionally to provide quick and efficient service for those in need of a rapid collection of waste. These man and van services come with the added benefit of the labour to pick up and load the waste too so for those who don’t or can’t load this has been a great benefit.

These collections have been more reliable and efficient than traditional skip collections, the problem of booking, waiting for your skip to arrive, the loading, and then the generally poor service received by skip users continues to plague the skip user.

While service levels in the skip industry continue to fall new service entries like the man and van service will continue to grow.

Well, I’m sure the man and van collections will continue to grow with their high service levels, more competitive services and near-immediate collections skips seem to still be the ‘go-to’ for many looking to dispose of waste. There are alternatives, they are just not widely available yet. In other parts of the world, mobile tipping enclosed skips are being widely used.

In Australia for instance these mobile ‘skips’ are seen all across the country, even DIY stores offer them to their customers. Users can tow them themselves, fill them and arrange for them to be picked up as and when they are full.

These mobile skips are proving to fill the gap between the inefficient skips and the man and van collections. A cost-effective alternative, delivered at a dedicated time and collected exactly when needed the UK could see these ‘funky’ looking containers in the very short future.

We won’t know exactly as they are not currently in use here in the UK however above is an image of the ones seen every day in Australia so they should look something like this.

We will keep you in the picture with regular posts and as we hear of anyone starting to roll these out we will be sure to tell you .