Household Waste Services, Managed Properly | AES

Absolute Environmental Solutions has opened a household division. The waste management service we have run for industrial clients since 2019 is now available to householders, tenants, landlords and families clearing a property: skip hire, waste removal, van collection and full house clearances.

The model is unchanged. Every job is carried out by a licensed contractor that we choose, check and manage on your behalf, exactly as we do for a factory. We are a registered waste broker and dealer with the Environment Agency, registration CBDU309472: our work is to find the right contractor, confirm their licence, agree the price and the destination, and make sure the paperwork comes back to you.

You have a legal duty of care for your own household waste

Here is the part most people have never been told. Under waste law, a householder has a duty of care for the waste produced at their home. It is real, and it carries a specific obligation: you must take reasonable steps to pass your waste only to someone authorised to take it.

That means a registered waste carrier. Anyone who collects waste from your home for money, a skip firm, a clearance crew or a van operator, must be registered with the Environment Agency. That register is public and free to search, so if you are arranging a collection yourself, check the carrier on the Environment Agency public register (opens in a new tab) first.

Why this matters: the man with a van

The common failure is not deliberate. A household needs a sofa taken away. Someone on a local social media group offers to do it cash in hand, cheaper than anyone else. The waste is loaded, the money changes hands, and the householder assumes that is the end of it.

It is not. An unlicensed operator has nowhere lawful to tip that load, so it is tipped on a lane or a layby. When the council or the Environment Agency investigates, they go through it, and what they find is the paperwork that came out of your house: letters, prescriptions, delivery labels. The waste is traced back to the address that produced it.

The householder, not the man with the van, is then the person the authority can act against, because the householder is the one who failed to check. You can be fined even though you paid in good faith.

Four services, one standard

This division exists to close that gap. We already run the vetting, licence checks and documentation routinely for industrial clients, and every service below is delivered on the same basis: a vetted, licensed contractor, chosen and managed by us.

Household skip hire

A skip delivered to your property and left with you, for a project running over several days: a renovation, a garden overhaul, a loft emptied room by room. If the skip has to stand on the public road rather than your own drive, a council permit is required, and we will tell you whether your job needs one before anything is booked. The page sets out the sizes and what must never go into a mixed skip. Read more about household skip hire.

Household waste removal

No skip, no permit, no vehicle outside for a week. A crew arrives at an agreed time, loads the waste by hand and takes it away on the same visit. This suits a garage, a shed, a single room, or a property with nowhere to put a skip. Read more about household waste removal.

Van collection of waste

For one specific load, priced by the volume it occupies in the van rather than by a day rate, and usually available the same day or the next: a fridge, a bed, a bathroom suite. You describe the load, you are quoted for the space it takes, and an appointed licensed collector comes for it. Read more about van collection of waste.

House clearances

A whole property, usually at a difficult moment: a bereavement, a probate sale, the end of a tenancy, a move to somewhere smaller, or a hoarded property. A clearance is a sorting job before it is a disposal job. Furniture, white goods, books and clothing in usable condition are set aside for reuse and donation first, because the least wasteful outcome is one where an item carries on being used. Only what cannot be reused is treated as waste. Read more about house clearances.

The items that have their own rules

• Upholstered seating. Sofas, armchairs and padded dining chairs contain persistent organic pollutants in their foams and fabrics. A usable item can be rehomed, which is why clearances sort for reuse first. Once discarded as waste it must be kept separate and sent for incineration, so at that point it can be neither recycled nor donated, and never goes into a mixed load.
• Fridges and freezers. These contain refrigerant gases and insulating foams needing specialist handling and degassing at an authorised facility, so they cannot be crushed in with general waste.
• Asbestos. Common in garages, sheds, old artex and water tanks in older properties. It never goes into a general load, and needs its own survey and route.

Everything else goes to a permitted transfer station, where the load is sorted and as much as possible is pulled out for recycling rather than disposal. That is the outcome an unlicensed operator cannot give you, because they have no permitted site to take your waste to.

How to arrange a household job

Tell us what you need cleared and where it is. We will advise which of the four services actually fits, which is not always the obvious one, arrange the contractor and confirm the price before anything is booked. The waste goes to a permitted facility, reusable items stay out of the waste stream, and you keep a record of where your waste went and who took it.