How much does rubbish removal cost?

So how much does rubbish removal actually cost?

The honest answer is that it depends on how much you've and what it is, which is why we quote every rubbish removal job up front as a fixed price rather than charging by the hour. You will know the full cost before we touch a thing, and that number doesn't move once the truck is loaded unless you add to the pile on the day and ask us to take more.

As a rough guide for the Eurobodalla coast, a small single load (a few bags, an old mattress, a couple of bits of broken furniture) sits at the lower end. A bigger clear out where you're filling a trailer or ute tray several times over costs more because of the time, the tip fees and the trips. We would rather give you a real figure for your actual pile than print a price that turns out to be wrong, so the fastest way to a number is a quick photo or a look in person.

We're Capital Coastal Cleaning, an Indigenous owned local business based in Batemans Bay, and we run rubbish removal alongside our cleaning work. That means a lot of our jobs are end of clear out, not just a skip on a driveway, and we price them the same honest way.

What goes into the price

Three things mostly decide the cost. The first is volume, or how much space your rubbish takes up in the truck. The second is weight, because tips charge by the tonne and a load of soil, tiles or wet green waste weighs far more than the same volume of cardboard or plastic. The third is what the items are, since some things cost extra to dispose of properly and some can't go to a general tip at all.

On top of that we factor in access and labour. Rubbish sitting in an open garage at the front of the house is quick. Rubbish that has to be carried up a flight of stairs, out of a back yard, or down a long driveway takes longer, and longer means more cost. If we have to dismantle a deck, a shed or a built in wardrobe before it will move, that's extra hands and extra time too, and we'll tell you that when we quote.

Tip and transfer station fees are a real and rising part of the bill in our region, so when we quote we're passing on the actual disposal cost, not padding it. If a load can be partly recycled or dropped at green waste rates instead of general landfill, that often brings the figure down, and we'll sort it that way where we can.

What we'll and won't take

We happily take general household junk, old furniture, mattresses, whitegoods and appliances, broken outdoor furniture, garage and shed clutter, green waste from a yard tidy, and the leftover mess after a move or a renovation. If it's the sort of thing you'd load into a trailer and run to the tip yourself, we can do that for you.

There are things we can't just throw in the truck. Asbestos is the big one, and along this coast there's still plenty of fibro and old sheeting around the older holiday shacks and rentals. Asbestos has to be handled and disposed of by a licensed removalist under strict rules, so we won't touch it, and we'll tell you straight if we spot it rather than putting anyone at risk. The same goes for large volumes of chemicals, fuels, gas bottles, paint tins and car batteries, which need specialist drop off points.

If your pile has a mix of fine and not fine, we'll sort the load on the day, take what we legally can, and point you to the right place for the rest. We would rather be upfront about a limit than quote you a job we shouldn't be doing.

When rubbish removal comes with a clean

A lot of our rubbish jobs aren't standalone. They come attached to an end of lease clean, a deceased estate, a builders clean after a renovation, or a holiday let that the last tenants left in a state. In those cases it makes sense to do both together, because we're already on site and the rubbish has to be gone before the place can be properly cleaned.

For end of lease in particular, getting the rubbish out matters for your bond. Our bond cleans are done to the REINSW exit standard and carry our bond back guarantee, and a yard full of leftover junk or a garage full of abandoned furniture will fail an exit inspection no matter how clean the kitchen is. As a guide, our bond cleans are a fixed price by size, from $450 plus GST for a one bedroom up to $850 plus GST for a four bedroom, with carpet cleaning at a flat $50 per room plus GST, and we can fold the rubbish removal into that same quote so you get one fixed price for the whole exit.

After a builders clean the rubbish tends to be offcuts, packaging, render bags and general site mess, which is bulky but light, so volume drives the price more than weight. For a yard tidy it's the opposite, since green waste and soil are heavy. We price each to what it actually is.

How we price a rubbish job

Hourly rates put all the risk on you. If the job runs slow because of bad weather, awkward access or a tip queue, an hourly charge keeps ticking and you've no way of knowing the final bill until it lands. We don't work that way. We look at your rubbish, work out the volume, the weight and the disposal cost, and give you one number to approve before we start.

That fixed number protects you on the coast in particular, where salt, sand and damp gear can make a clear out heavier and grubbier than it looks in a photo. A pile of waterlogged outdoor furniture or sand packed shed gear weighs more than the same items would inland, and we account for that in the quote so there's no nasty surprise at the end.

The only time the price changes is if you decide on the day that you want more taken than we quoted on, and even then we'll give you the new figure before we load it. No hidden minimums, no fuel surcharges sprung at the end, no rounding up once the truck is full.

Getting a real number for your job

The quickest way to find out what your rubbish removal will cost is to send us a couple of photos of the pile, or let us know roughly what's there, how many rooms or what size yard it came from, and where it's sitting (front garage, back yard, upstairs unit). From that we can usually give you a fixed price the same day. For bigger or trickier jobs we're happy to come and look in person, which costs you nothing.

We're fully insured and police checked, we use low tox products on the cleaning side, and we're rated 5.0 from 110 Google reviews, so you're dealing with a known local team rather than a one off bloke with a trailer who may not turn up. We're open seven days and we cover the Eurobodalla coast from Durras through Batemans Bay down to Moruya, including all the holiday let and rental stock in between.

Tyson, Shanice and Lisa run the jobs, and you can get a quote or book a clear out by calling 0479 184 498. Tell us what you've got, and we'll tell you exactly what it costs to make it disappear, with one fixed price and no guesswork.

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