[Jonny jones]

hi im  thinking of starting a wheelie bin cleaning service in my area can anybody help

[*Chris Browne]

Search south on www.scsf.co.uk



chris

[armonk]

What would you like to know. As long as you are in North Wales and not on my patch I will give you some info. lol 

For starters you need equipment, which retains or recycles the water on the vehicle. There are heavy fines for disposing of the trade effluent in the road/drain. There's a guy on here (George-Reid) who manufactures them. You could also look on ebay, but be carefull to get kit that does the job properly and legally.

You will need a waste carriers licence if you are going to carry any waste on the vehicle. You also need a water effluent permit from your local water authority to dispose of the effluent. Talk to your local environment agency officer as it varys.

You can do 100- 200 bins per day depending on the type of equipment you have. You can charge anywhere between £2 - £3.50 depending on where you are.

Whilst this sounds great, your mission should you choose to accept it is sales. Get out there and knock on doors. When I started I was given a figure of 20 - 30% of peoiple would sign up. Its crap. Realistically its 10 - 15% and if you have competition in the area, then this drops considerably. Sales is obviously key and you can get dispondant going out for 3 hrs in the evening or on a saturday morning to find that you get just 2 new customers. You the stamina for canvassing long term. You have been warned.

I'm sure George will have some things to add as well. Good Luck.

Matt



 

[andy roberts]

We had a man knock on our door last year to do this type of cleaning and I thought what a great idea. He promised everything and said he was reliable, however, as time went on, the service became sparadic and then it just stopped without any warning. How good is that?

The other thing that cheesed me off was that he would never send out a monthly account, he kept on knocking on the door every week demanding his £2.50 which became annoying in the end.

The moral of this story is, if you wanna keep your customers happy, be reliable and have weekly/monthly account facility available.

Now Ive got that off my chest, and no, theres no sign of my wheelie bin cleaner as yet!

Regards,  Andy

[Len Gribble]

Only got one wheelie bin that’s for garden rubbish no soil, have two boxes one paper the other glass, general waste go in a bags.

For info in the next road to me a newbie in this field I think! Van has not moved in three weeks.

Len

[andy roberts]

Where I live if you dont put your rubbish in wheelie bins you can get fined. Putting domestic rubbish out in black bags is a sin here, as well as providing food for our resident seagulls, rubbish can easily get thrown around all over the place in bags. So starting a wheelie bin cleaning service has got to be a winner.


Just wish I could find my wheelie bin cleaner. I wonder where he's gone!? 

[Len Gribble]

Andrew

Am sure some will franchise you!  You also could kill two gulls with one swoop TM come WBC.

Re donkey just testing, don’t see many tom’s over here now!

Len

[Jonny jones]

thanx armonk great advice will think it over.

[semy]

Hi,
Ive been in the wheelie bin cleaing business for some time now and to sum the job up in two words  "easy money".

Are you thinking about approaching a franchise or building it up your self? Franchise can take some of the hard work out but you will pay way over the odds for it. You can pick up a good set up from george who is on the forums, im sure he will post soon.

If you want to build it yourself then you will save alot of money but you will have to plan it out, but it isnt rocket science so it shoud be quite painless.

How do you build the business up?
Easy get a route plan off the council to determine the areas you will be cleaning on certain days, try and see what time they start in what places etc. you dont want to have a load of new customers all in one area to be cleaned at the same time, new customer = one hell of smelly bin which takes a while to clean so spread them over the day.

Now to canvass the area get a couple of your mates and go out the night or two before you clean them and try and canvas up to around 30-40 bins per new days work. Now ive found one person should get 8-12 new bins in a night for about 1-2 hours so around 2-3 people is enough.I pay them around £10-15 a night depending how long it takes us.  This will keep you knee deep in whatever for a good 3-5 hours at 30-40 new bin cleans, rinse and repeat for the rest of your round. Are you doing once a month or once a fortnight? I would recommend fortnightly as you only need half the customer base.

The next time you go to clean them it will take one person 1-2 hours tops to clean them so canvas around 20 more new ones to clean on that day. Then keep on doing this until you have a good round or cant face knocking doors any more  Its handy to take flyers around with you as when you canvas you will find alot of people arent in.

Hope this helps, any other question let me know

Semy

[Prestige1]

Semy
How much can you hope to make in a week? regards Phil

[keith b]

Semy,

Just a few questions if thats ok with you!

Do customers tend to line their plastic bins with black bin liners? or do they just fill the plastic bins direct with household waste without the bin liner??

Do you get any problems with filters or blocked pipes on your machinery given the above?

Do you follow the dustmans lorry direct on collection days? what are the pro`s or con`s if any?

How do collect money from customer for cleaning bins?
Is this through a standing order? or can they pay you via your own website if any?

keith b

[semy]

OK to the first question,

How much can you hope to make in a week?

I find one person can clean around 20 bins on their own per hour, now it all depends on what your council is like but our bin men are out 5-6 hours a day. So 1 man should be able to clean 100- 120 bins on his own. Saying that, you will be knackered at the end of the day. But most cleaners are getting about £2 -£3 a clean so do the math 


Do customers tend to line their plastic bins

I have 2 customers that line their bin for some uknown reason, all the rest dump straight in to bin.

Do you get any problems with filters or blocked pipes on your machinery

I find as with all machinery, poor maintainence = asking for trouble. I make sure all my gear is well looked after day by day. Its easy to wash filters out and takes no time.


Do you follow the dustmans lorry direct on collection days

Yes i do

How do collect money from customer for cleaning bins

They can pay by website, leaving money out on the day or through the post. When i clean the bin i leave a small note, letting them know ive cleaned their bin and payment options, it works very well i find.

Hope this helps

Semy

[Ali_D]

This may be of use.
I used to have a wheelie bin in Liverpool and the cleaner used to put a label on all the bins he cleaned, with name, address & phone number.  I saw the sticker on my neighbours and that's how I started having mine cleaned.
Ali

[andy roberts]

Still cant find my wheelie bin cleaner!!!!!???     

Possibly new business venture for me? Now theres an idea.

[Kelvin]

In Cheltenham, there was a firm called environclean.  They put stickers on our wheelie bins a little while ago.  We decided to take the plunge and have ours done, rang the number and oops....a deadline.  Looked in Yellow Pages and noticed that same firm were the only ones advertising.  Made me wonder whether if there was enough call for that kind of service.  Before we bought the cooker cleaning franchise, we looked at wheelie bin cleaning but decided against it.

Having said that, maybe the company didnt do enough legwork to get enough business.

Kelvin

[keith b]

thanks semy