What is the difference between garden waste and green waste?

Yes! It's really time to give that garden a proper makeover. You've been staring at your tired old “tacky” garden for a while, or maybe you've just moved and the previous occupant's garden is nothing like what you have in mind. When the weather's nice, you want to put your feet up and enjoy your very own garden. Time to get started! First, that old garden has to go. That means all the old materials need to be removed. For this, you can easily hire a container. It's placed at your home, you fill it and it's taken away again. Easy, right? But once you look into skip hire, you soon find out that a garden produces different waste types, and that various terms for garden waste are used interchangeably.

A garden produces various materials, or waste types. If you want to get rid of them, it's essentially waste. Old paving, a low brick wall, a fence, old wooden beams (a pergola?), garden furniture, plants, (excess) soil and, for example, old turf. Waste from the garden is also called garden waste and should not be confused with green waste.

Green waste, as the name suggests, is only green (and a bit of brown). Plants and pruning waste such as branches and mown grass. When a container is filled with green waste, the driver goes straight to the compost heap to tip it. Green waste is composted and fermented. What remains is a highly valuable and fertile substance that many gardeners are eager to get their hands on. Compost is packed with nutrients and is used in gardens and vegetable plots. A wonderful example, and one of the oldest, of recycling. The processing of green waste doesn't allow large amounts of sand and/or soil to be mixed in with it. Small amounts can be mixed in, but the recycling process isn't meant to produce compost that consists mostly of old (infertile) soil or sand. For this reason, loose soil is not allowed in a garden waste skip.

Soil is preferably collected separately. Excavated soil isn't recycled but “relocated”. Where you might want to get rid of your soil, someone else nearby may want to raise their garden and need that same soil. That's why there are companies that accept soil and (after inspection and any cleaning) sell it on for reuse. Turf is disposed of as soil. When a container contains only turf, it's usually classed as soil and kept separate on site. After all, if you need soil, you don't want old turf mixed in with it and half a lawn in your garden in no time. Turf can also go in a green waste skip, as long as there isn't too much of it and it has no more than 5 centimetres of soil attached.

All the separate waste types from your garden can be recycled well. We live in a world where recycling is becoming ever more important, and we're increasingly aware that we need to use raw materials sparingly. The best and most environmentally friendly way to recycle garden waste is to separate it at the source. Green waste, soil and rubble (that's all materials made of stone, such as paving) can be collected as separate waste types, or single streams. If you then look at the prices of waste skips, you'll see that skips for these separate waste types are cheaper than a skip for mixed garden waste.

That all sounds great, but with an average garden of 25m2 you won't have enough waste to fill 3 separate skips. On top of that, if you order three skips (even slightly cheaper ones), the total cost adds up, and you may also have other waste types such as wood and plastic. That's why there's also mixed garden waste. This covers all the waste types mentioned above together. The skip for mixed garden waste is sorted on site using an impressive installation. This is a costly process, as an installation like that requires a substantial investment as well as maintenance and manpower. For this reason, a skip for mixed garden waste costs more than, for example, a green waste skip. The most important rule for the mixed garden waste skip is that everything should go in only in moderation. The skip shouldn't consist mostly of green waste with, say, a broken garden chair and a wooden beam. The same rule applies to soil. A small amount of soil is allowed in a mixed garden waste skip. It's separated on site, but by then it's contaminated and can no longer be reused as soil. A real waste.

Looking for skip hire for garden waste? Then order it through our webshop. ContainerOnline delivers skips throughout the Netherlands, usually the next working day. View all waste skips and waste types. All prices always include all costs, including VAT. Handy! That way you know exactly in advance what it will cost to get rid of your waste.