Plasterboard Disposal, New regulations

moike

A friend of mine has just been challenged at our local tip (Bedhampton) for trying to throw a piece of plasterboard 2' by 4' into the skip, he was told that they can no longer accept this material, and he needs to hire a skip to dispose of this.
This is surely madness, I couldn't believe it was not an april fools joke that had gone on too long but sure enough there are numerous reports on the internet about it.

All this meant in reality is that he took it home, broke it into several smaller pieces, put them in a bag, and took them back!, but surely this is just going to increase instances of fly tipping !

anyone else had problems?

Regards

WestonDave

It is madness - and its actually wrong. The aim of the Eu directive is to prevent large concentrations of gypsum based products being landfilled. Even on a bad day a domestic recycling facility is not going to attraction a significant amount of plasterboard waste in a particular load. The council is making use of this change of ruling to reduce its services - in reality all that is happening is that the stuff is getting landfilled but they don't know about it because of practises like those you describe. It would be far better for them to have a seperate container on site and then they would know what they were dealing with.

I have plenty to criticise our council for but on waste disposal they tend to take a pragmatic approach (we still get weekly collections!) and will even take asbestos but require you to bag it and phone for it to be collected. I think this is a far better approach as it avoids the temptation for people to sneak it into the general bins.

Canucklehead

Good morning: Our CC accepts plasterboard for recycling.

HTH

Canucklehead

27col

Our local amenity tip used to have a plasterboard skip until recently. Now it is gone. There is no alternative arrangement signposted as yet. In the past I have found that PB breaks down quite nicely if left at the bottom of the garden. Presumably not an option if you only have a small garden.

jongdawson

Yeah, this plasterboard thing is mental. I live in quite a nice part of Cheshire, I am a kitchen and bathroom fitter and as such, have usually got lots of plasterboard offcuts. Now I am unable to dispose of them at the local tip. During my travels, I see lots of fridges and freezers dumped in lay-byes........the tip want £65.00 + vat to take them off a trader????? So how come they will collect them for free from a householder.........it's no wonder fly tipping is on the increase, I expect to see loads of plasterboards in lay-byes, supermarket car parks etc etc in the not too distant future.....things really are getting out of hand with all this GREEN NONSENSE.......:rotfl:

Kaz2904

I noticed that there is a new skip at our local tip for plasterboard. It isn't one of the huge ones and is in the middle of the car park bit. It's a little yellow builders skip but that is where we are all to put plasterboard now. I used to put it in with the rubble before.
Maybe our council is improving then?!

cyril82

I am a plasterer by trade and it is ridiculeous. my lock up is full of waste plaster board and associated waste, i have to let it build up and then get a skip to dispose of it.

i rang my council to ask where i could responsibly dispose of my trade waste and all they suggested was to get a skip, apparently the reason council tips don't take trade waste is because they now have targets to reduce their landfill waste by x amount of tonnes a year under some E.U directive.

What i don't understand though is, regardless of if the council accept it or not, it still ends up in landfill, where do they think skip companies take it?

So while it may look good to hold up a pice of paper saying, "the uk sent X amount of tonnes less waste to landfill last year" the truth is we didn't, the skip company just sent it to landfill instead of the council...

Could somebody explain how this benefits the enviroment? just sounds like burying youre head in the sand to me.

Canucklehead

Hi,

If anyone bothered to click on the links in post #3 they would find it is recycled.
The reasoning is that plasterboard contains sulphates. These, when buried in landfill, produce hydrogen sulphide gas. ( Flammable and poisonous.)

GSR

lisal0u

I think its a good idea that it gets recycled rather than go to landfill!

We took an estate car full to the tip this weekend and it only cost £5!

It is more expensive for trade but surely you would just add the cost of this to the job you are quoting for?

ormus

i was asked yesterday for the first time. took some general rubbish and gardening waste to the tip and the hi viz chap asked me if any of the black bags contained plaster or PB?

cyril82

lisal0u wrote: »

I think its a good idea that it gets recycled rather than go to landfill!

We took an estate car full to the tip this weekend and it only cost £5!

It is more expensive for trade but surely you would just add the cost of this to the job you are quoting for?

yea, it can be added to the price, but in these times of recession and cut throat pricing every penny you add to a quote puts you at risk of losing the job to those who will happily just fly tip their waste away, so in the end we usually end up taking a hit ourselves from the profit on the job rather than adding to the quote.