wanting to start a wheelie bin cleaning service

I would have thought you need to contact environmental services within the council to find out about whether or not you need to 'keep' the water or not. We have someone locally you comes round and cleans the bins but as I don't subscribe I don't know what the charge is.

As others have said you would need to find out what day each road has its bins cleaned so that you could clean them that day.

hi, i actually used to run a wheelie bin cleaning business with my ex husband, we ran it 7 years so can probably answer some of your questions. firstly you need a street traders license, you might also need, depending on your councils rules, a license from the water board to draw water from fire hydrants, and yes, you are not allowed to drop water down the drain, some companies do even though you are not supposed to , but you can face a hefty fine if you are caught..its because of the risk of cross contamination if there are cracks in drains/pipes etc, and it is sepa who will enforce this. you will usually be asked how and where you plan to dispose of your dirty water when you apply for a license... in our case we had a dirty water tank on the back of our van which was filled via a sump pump from the trough (which was also on on the back of our van) in which we washed the bins (to avoid dropping dirty water/rubbish all over the streets which is obviously another no no) and we had an agreement with a local local farmer that we could empty it into his septic tank,(old friend of the family). please dont base your figures on people wanting their recycling bins washed, these dont tend to get smelly so people generally dont bother ,preferring instead to get the general household ones washed on a more regular basis and sometimes the garden waste ones in the summer. some flats can be problematic... you always get some ""helpful soul" pulling all the bins in off the street, taking them through to the back and locking entry points, ..by the time you have located someone who is in, got a key, dragged the bins back out to be washed etc you have wasted a lot of time. please also bear in mind that people sometimes forget to put their bin out for emptying so it cant get washed, or have it half full by the time you get there a little later in the day to wash it ,again meaning it couldnt get washed=lost income. it also will not pay you to take their rubbish out and take it to the tip,.. as you run as a commercial business the tip will charge you for disposing of rubbish and obviously you need to keep your overheads down, other problems we faced were bins not getting emptied due to industrial action, and people not paying(in the end we would not wash after 3 washes were due until the bill was settled... partly because we did not want to get bumped but also because some people genuinely did find it difficult to pay once their bill became too high, we would put a slip through the door on the day we washed the bins if they were out so there could be no confusion over what people were due, and believe me, some people would swear blind that their bin had not been washed to save £1.50... usually the well heeled ones believe it or not lol. on a positive note, it was great working out doors, being our own bosses and although it never made us rich it did provide us with a reasonable standard of living for a good few years and as you are planning on running this alongside your exsisting business i would say go for it, good luck!!

From looking at various franchise sites the standard model seems to be to list a price of around £4 with a reduction to £3.50 for an advance subscription.

£3.50 rather than £1 per bin will give you a much more realistic time per customer. However it does take it to a price that will limit your customer base, especially all year round.

Simple number crunching for one person working on their own suggests you need to sign up around 500 customers on annual subscription. I think the biggest challenge is that as the vehicle has to be specially modified it would be hard to run alongside your valeting business.

Patio cleaning sounds like a good sideline...not sure how big a market it will be these days though when pressure washers are so cheap, although you may offer a better service you'll have to charge around £10 to be profitable whereas most people have a mate they can borrow a pressure washer off in exchange for a couple of beers.

Ste_C wrote: »

If your car valeting business is struggling, what makes you think this will be any different?

Having your wheelie bin cleaned is not essential, in fact it's barely needed at all. My two bins have been cleaned once each in the last year and they're fine. They smell a little, but only when the bin is open.

I cannot understand why people would pay to have their bins cleaned. There is a wheelie bin cleaner who lives near to me, but I have never seen him cleaning a bin and I know nobody who uses him.

As has been mentioned, even in a positive economic climate you'd need to clean hundreds of bins each week. In a recession when people are cutting back on non-essentials it seems crazy.

Very popular where I live, the wheelie bin cleaners follow the refuse collectors around, so never any issues of missing a clean. Our bins, like most now are emptied every two weeks. We still have children in nappies, that is our reason, makes the bin stink even after emptying otherwise. The bins are washed and disinfected and really happy with the service. We don't pre-pay.

Regarding the water thing. The guys doing this near to us have a system that lifts and tips the bins and the water is retained in their vehicle.

Do people really have their bins cleaned?
Its a bin, its supposed to stink, if it gets too bad I squirt a bit of bleach in it. I wouldnt dream of paying someone to clean it.