wanting to start a wheelie bin cleaning service

vikingv

I am currently running a mobile car valeting business but this is not going so well in the current climate so im thinking of branching out and start offering wheelie bin cleaning. I am wondering whether anyone knows any legislation or ideas ect for me. i have a van which is equiped with a pressure washer and water tank as well as all my valeting equipment which i can remove for the bin cleaning so that's one outlay I won't have. I have done some research and how found that some franchise companies say that the water needs to be kept and NOT go down the drain network so guess I would need to contact the local council for guidance?
I would charge £1 a bin.

thank you in advance for any suggestions or experiences.

ukbill69

I think its a good idea and for £1, no one could grumble at that could they. Not sure about waste water. But good luck.

pandora205

Someone is doing it locally here for a sign up for around £3.50 per month (can't remember exactly) which presumably guarantees ongoing business.

vikingv

well i was thinking of that, in a normal 4 week month there are on average 6 bins to be cleaned per month. so i would try to get people to pay in advance for there bins whether it be on a fornightly basis or monthly. i just need to collect as much information regarding the water down storm drains etc before i invest into this idea. i have contacted the local council today via email so hopefully ill have a response soon enough.

cosyc

My mum pays £3 a month. Shes a pensioner so can't get to bottom of bin to clean.

paulwf

Have you sat down and crunched some numbers?

Let's presume for sake of argument this was to be a full time business yielding a sensible but not excessive income for one person.

To cover your operating overheads plus pay yourself a wage (remember you need to factor in extra to cover holiday and sick pay) lets say you need to generate £12 per hour. That means cleaning a wheelie bin every 5 minutes non-stop for perhaps 8 hours a day.

That's 96 bins a day or 480 a week. That creates two issues that you need to address. The first is can one person process a bin then get to the next location (and don't expect a take up rate above 5%) in 5 minutes? Secondly can you get 480 customers? I'm assuming you would clean a bin after the refuse collection and you would do their waste bin one week and their recycling bin the next.

Obviously my figures are meaningless but I hope they give you a framework to put in your own numbers. I do think a figure of having to turn round every bin in 5 minutes is a good ballpark figure though, and without knowing much about the industry I doubt that average could be sustained for any length of time.

I also think building up a round of 500 customers (throughout the year not only in the smelly summer months) is going to take a long period of time and a lot of hard work. Don't fall for the business maths fallacy "if only 1% of potential customers buy our product...".

Sorry if that sounds pessimistic...would love you to provide some figures from a trial to prove me wrong. It just sounds too much like an "up your income" style business where you make a few quid on the side at a very low hourly rate not a genuine income.

BTW there doesn't seem any need or the margins to go down the franchise route.

mazza111

A guy started doing it round this way for £1 a week, but I think he had problems collecting the money from people who weren't at home when he was cleaning the bins. I used to always leave the cash with my neighbour and she would pay him, but would love this kind of service to start up again.

zzzLazyDaisy

We used to have a bin cleaning service which we paid for monthly. The problem was they would often turn up two or three days after the bin had been emptied, by which time it was in use again. Obviously we cancelled.

So you do need to make sure that you follow the collection team round and/or clean the bin fairly soon after it has been emptied.

borders_dude

If you are doing it you need some kind of pre payment arrangments.

Good luck, report back in a year and tell us how you have done!

ukbill69

borders_dude wrote: »

If you are doing it you need some kind of pre payment arrangments.

Good luck, report back in a year and tell us how you have done!

Like your windows being done, you dont pre-pay to them do you.

ukbill69

Got a name for you that available: cleanabin.co.uk