What to Do if Someone Puts Rubbish in Your Skip?

You may be excited to get on with your renovations, your bright yellow skip has just arrived, and suddenly it’s overflowing with someone else’s rubbish.

Someone filled your skip, and it’s not a botch job either - they’ve visited in the night to make sure you can’t do anything about it. So, what do you do if someone puts rubbish in your skip? The first step is not to worry: there’s always a solution, even if it involves a little more work.

Is It Illegal to Put Rubbish in Someone’s Skip?

Ever heard of fly-tipping? The term refers to the rather unsavoury practice of dumping waste into the environment rather than a good old-fashioned bin. Your perpetrator may have believed that someone else’s skip counts as a bin, but they couldn’t be more wrong - it’s illegal to use someone else's skip to get rid of your waste, and on paper, it’s considered to be just as bad as throwing a mattress into the woods.

In 2023, the maximum on-the-spot fine for fly-tipping rose to £1,000. That’s a grand down the drain if someone is caught throwing their rubbish into your skip, and it’s definitely not worth the money to do so. Unfortunately, the homeowner can also be fined up to £600 for failing to get rid of rubbish responsibly - so it’s important to report the offence as soon as it happens to avoid any misunderstandings!

Is It Illegal to Take Stuff Out of a Skip?

As the homeowner (and the temporary custodian of a beautiful yellow skip) you’re free to do whatever you want with the items inside. However, you should never take someone else’s rubbish bags out of your skip before the authorities have had the chance to examine them. Doing so opens you up to liability, and you may be fined or charged for fly-tipping by mistake. Check with the officers whether you can remove the bags after they’ve studied them, or whether they’ll send a company to collect them.

What Can You Do If Someone Fills Your Skip?

If someone filled your skip in the night, you’ve got a little bit of work to do in the morning. It’s annoying, but if you do everything correctly, you could stand a chance of getting the culprit apprehended - and even if you don’t, if they are local and see it has been reported when the authorities visit, it might scare them away from a repeat offence.

Step One: Report

Before you do anything else, it’s time to get in touch with your local authority. Some councils allow you to report fly-tipping online, while others will require a phone call to report it successfully. Take pictures of the offending rubbish (without moving it!) and submit them if asked. An enforcement officer should be around to check out the waste as soon as possible.

Step Two: Gather Evidence

Does your home have a Ring doorbell camera, or do your neighbours own CCTV? Hit the street and have a good look around for cameras, sensors or twitching curtains. Knock on the neighbour’s doors and ask if they saw anything, or if they have any footage you can use. When the enforcement officer arrives, you will hopefully have video evidence you can provide.

Step Three: Responsible Disposal

Since the rubbish was fly-tipped, your local council should be able to pick it up for you. This may take a day or two, depending on the authority. It’s important not to move the rubbish yourself, even if you think they’re taking too long.

Step Four: Inform Your Skip Hire Company

Some items cannot be added to skips. Waste such as asbestos, chemicals, upholstery, mattresses, and plasterboard can contaminate skips, causing non-hazardous waste to become hazardous and more difficult to dispose of. Ask the enforcement officer what kind of waste has been dumped into your skip, and contact your waste disposal company to let them know what’s happened. They’ll inform you whether you can continue to use the skip or not and advise if a replacement is necessary.

How to Prevent People from Using Your Skip

Now that you’ve been through the stress and emerged with a skip free of others' waste, it’s time to take preventative measures. As long as people see what they may consider to be a ‘big bin’ on the side of the road, they’ll feel comfortable dropping their rubbish into it. There’s very little you can do to prevent the thought occurring to people, but you’ll be happy to know that there are steps you can take to deter people from acting on that thought.

Use camera traps

These days, many houses have some type of camera attached to the front door (such as Ring). They’re great for preventing crime, discouraging cold callers and helping you with deliveries. They also make CCTV far more accessible for anyone. It’s good practice to set up one or two visible cameras, and then you could additionally hide a few where intruders can’t see them. That way you bring a two-pronged approach: discouragement, but if that doesn’t work, it will help you catch the offenders.

Hide your skip or make it less accessible

We know that you shouldn’t have to, but you can help to prevent fly-tipping by hiding your skip from the road. This could look like tucking it behind your garden hedge, piling up the rubble in front of it, or simply parking your car in between your skip and the road. The less passers-by can see, then the lower the likelihood of someone walking up to your garden to use it as a rubbish dump.

Lock your gates

If you have gates and the space to close them, even if you’re not in the habit of locking your gates, it could be for the best while you have your skip at home. Nobody is entitled to trespass on your property, and having to open or, even worse, climb over a gate is a big deterrent for people.

Book a HIPPOBAG

Unlike a skip, a HIPPOBAG is flexible, versatile and can be placed wherever it’s convenient for you. If you’re worried about the logistics of hiding your skip away from the road, booking a HIPPOBAG is the perfect solution to give you complete control over where your skip is going to go. Unlike skips, they’re also much easier to cover with a tarpaulin at night.