10m3 of rubble: what do you do with it?

Picture this: you have finally finished knocking down that old wall in your garden. A thick layer of dust hangs in the air, and a pile of rubble is all that remains of what was once a solid barrier. Then there is that stack of old tiles you have just pulled up from your driveway. It looks as if a volcano has just erupted in your back garden. You have worked out that you have about 10 cubic metres of rubble and you want to hire a 10m3 rubble skip to clear it all up neatly, but it doesn't seem to exist. So what's going on?

A rubble skip, also known as a clean rubble skip, is designed specifically for collecting rubble: waste made up of stone materials. Think of concrete, roof tiles, tiles, bricks, ceramic products and paving materials. Rubble skips come in 3m3, 6m3 and 15m3 sizes, so a 10m3 rubble skip does not exist. If you only have a small amount, you can also hire a Big Bag for rubble.

Rubble is a waste type made up of stone materials. It usually comes from building or demolition work, but also from redoing a patio. Rubble, also called 'clean rubble', is made up of stony materials such as bricks, concrete, ceramics, roof tiles and more. It is called 'clean' because it contains no contaminants such as plastic, wood or metal. Clean rubble is a valuable resource because it can be recycled and used as a foundation for roads or as a raw material for new building materials.

If you're looking for a 10m3 rubble skip, you'll find that there's no such thing. That's because rubble is very heavy. A full 10m3 chain-lift skip would simply be too heavy for a skip lorry to lift safely. A chain-lift skip is the typical open (sometimes closed) waste skip you often see outside a renovation. These skips are designed to be lifted and carried by a skip lorry. It is. These lorries have a special mechanism that lifts the skip off the ground and onto the lorry. Because of the limits of the skip lorry's design, though, a 10m3 load of rubble can't be handled safely.

So what do you do if you have 10m3 of rubble? You have two options. You can either hire a 6m3 rubble skip twice, or get a 15m3 rubble skip.

A 15m3 rubble skip is a different type of container. It's a large, fairly flat container made for removing large amounts of rubble. It's a bit like a 40 and 20 cubic metre skip. This type of container uses a different mechanism from a chain-lift skip. As the name suggests, a hook-lift container uses a large metal hook attached to a hydraulic system. When the container is full, the hook is attached to it and the hydraulic system lifts the container slightly and pulls it onto the lorry. This system needs a bit more space than a skip lorry, but it can handle larger and heavier containers of up to 15m3. That makes it a good choice when you have a lot of rubble, but not when space is tight.

People often call a waste skip that takes almost anything (a construction and demolition waste skip) a rubble skip. But if you order a rubble skip, you really do get a skip for rubble. Rubble is easy to process and doesn't need sorting, which is why this skip is fairly cheap. If you put other waste in it, the whole skip has to be sorted, and the other waste types sometimes have to go to different waste processors. That's a lot of work, so it often leads to a hefty additional charge. If you have a rubble skip, only put stone materials in it.