Saturday 24th December CLOSED
Sunday 25th December CLOSED
Monday 26th December CLOSED
Tuesday 27th December CLOSED
Wednesday 28th December Usual Trading Hours 7am-5pm
Thursday 29th December Usual Trading Hours 7am-5pm
Friday 30th December Usual Trading Hours 7am-5pm
Saturday 31st December CLOSED
Sunday 1st January 23 CLOSED
Monday 2nd January 23 CLOSED
Tuesday 3rd January 23 Usual Trading Hours Resume
We would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our customers a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year.
The Bin Guys will be closed in addition to our standard closing days on the following dates over the Easter & Anzac day period.
Friday 10th April – Good Friday – CLOSED
Saturday 11th April – CLOSED
Monday 13th April – CLOSED
Saturday 25th April – CLOSED
We would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a safe, happy and EGGcellent Easter!
The team at The Bin Guys have been busy behind the scenes increasing both our on road truck fleet & also adding to our skip bin fleet.
We now have 8 modern trucks ready to serve your waste disposal & rubbish removal needs from the smallest skip bin to the largest rubbish bin.
Our fleet now has 600 skip bins along with 3 x 9 tonne trucks, 4 x 23 tonne trucks & 1 x 28 tonne truck.
Our trucks all feature the newest euro 5 emission technology & are automatic with full air suspension so our drivers have reduced fatigue on the road to be as alert & safe a s possible.
All of our trucks are fitted with the latest remote lifting technology to ensure maximum safety as well.
Our trucks are all Hino & feature Australian designed & manufactured lifting equipment – supporting our economy.
There is a new phenomenon of “skip bags” being used as smaller 2 metre skip bins.
These are great & have purpose for people wishing to have waste on site for a long period of time, however there is many claims that are made by the suppliers online that are simply not true & you should be informed & not misled about making your waste disposal purchase carefully.
The Below claims are untrue & false & need to be considered carefully:
- “Up to 30% cheaper” – if a Bag in say Balcatta costs $39.95 & the pick-up fee is $169.00 then the cost is $208.95 how is this cheaper than say our same size skip bin in Balcatta for $150.00 all inclusive. In fact the skip bag is 40% more expensive!!
- The bag is 100% recyclable” – the materials of the bag are recyclable, however the bags are constructed of differing plastics, Nylon for the handles, polypropylene for the bag & other plastics for webbing & stitching. Plastic recyclers cannot recycle these bags unless they are unpicked & the plastics separated & then washed to remove contaminants such as dirt that has become trapped within the fabric. The suns UV Rays also break down the polypropylene which in turn makes it unsuitable for recycling.
- “As strong as a steel bin” Whilst skip bags are strong most of these companies have lifting limits & weights – Additional fees apply for loads that are heavy with some companies starting to charge additional fees at 350KG…………………………..& this is on top of the above purchase & Hire fees! – please read the fine print. In addition to this sharp & heavy objects such as steel or concrete can tear the bags. An important note to remember is that most of these bags are from China & the polypropylene will start to lose its strength when exposed to the suns UV rays – the bags may fall apart in less than 60 days when left outside in the sun & not be picked up resulting in additional fees to you!!
- “Easy to load” as the bags don’t have a ramp to wheel a barrow with like a steel skip bin they can be anything but easy to load. On a humorous note I observed one of these bags being blown down the street before it had any waste placed in it & the homeowner was scratching his head wondering where his “bin” had gone!!
- “Environmentally friendly” The skip bag is anything but environmentally friendly. The plastic cannot be recycled with ease, the costs in producing & shipping the bags along with in store displays etc. is far more than the many uses a steel bin receives over its life. The steel is of course 100% recyclable at the end of its lifespan which is approx. 15 years. The waste from the skip bags tends to be landfilled by a contractor & not recycled, whereas waste from our skip bins is diverted from landfill in our own recycling yard with up to 85% of our combined waste being recycled!!
In Addition to the above points there is the following to also consider:
- Many Skip bag rubbish disposal operators have a lead time of 5 days to pick up your bag from when you notify them that it is ready for pick up. Our skip bins have a known pick up date or if an early pick up is required than agreed it is generally within 24 working hours.
- Our experience with smaller bins shows that they are often filled within 48 hours negating the need for a bag to sit endlessly on site.
- Our bins have runners on the bottom to lift them up – this has a 2 fold effect, 1, to allow the bin to drain water away & prevent the bottom of the skip bin from rusting & 2, to not kill lawns, Skip bags will suffocate lawns when left for a period of time
- Waste left in bins or bags for an extended period of time will break down & smell, this can be items such as green waste, lawn clippings, carpet & the like. As stated most people will like their waste removed ASAP.
- Steel bins are engineered to lift heavy objects – a comparable steel bin to Skip bag will lift twice as much weight safely such as concrete, bricks & tiles or soil & turf.
In short skip bag type bins have their purpose but will never be as good as a traditional steel skip bin. Weigh up the pros & cons for your needs & read the fine print for the total cost of waste disposal – paying particular attention to weight limits & the suppliers terms & conditions.
Most importantly ask what happens to the waste & if it is recycled & where it is recycled. Don’t accept a simple “we recycle where possible” as it is meaningless. Insist that your waste be recycled & ask for proof such as independent auditing results or a tour of the recycling facility used.
Remember THE FUTURE – ITS OURS LETS NOT WASTE IT
After just two weeks, small business owners and farmers are already discovering the true cost of the federal government’s controversial taxes. Source: Herald Sun
SMALL business owners, farmers and home renovators are among those already feeling the effect of the carbon tax as prices soar just two weeks after the scheme was introduced.
In one of the biggest increases since July 1, the cost of hiring mini skip bins has risen by at least $100, or 25 per cent, due to the green levy and a new state government waste charge.
The controversial federal tax, changes to the diesel fuel rebate and a big spike in refrigerant gas costs – all part of the government’s clean energy reforms – have also driven up prices of vegetables, seafood and even pizza boxes.
Skip bin operators have warned that some home owners have already opted to illegally dump their waste to escape the hefty price rises.
Sydney Skip Bins owner Craig Wills said customers were furious when told of the increases and he had already had to lay off two workers.
“This is utterly disastrous,” Mr Wills, an environmental scientist, said.
“On some of our bins it is now costing us more to dispose of the rubbish than we are getting back. I’m trying to do the right thing and I’m getting punished for it. And so are families.”
Larger bins, holding five cubic metres, have risen from $530 to hire to as much as $730.
In a double whammy for home renovators, the state government has lifted its waste levy from $13 a tonne at landfill sites to an average of $96 a tonne. Other industries are also hurting.
The minister addressed the issue of waste disposal directly.
“If people are presenting this rise as all carbon related they would need to be very careful,” he said.
“There are a range of factors behind the cost increase for disposal of waste including state government levies.
by: Simon Benson and Steve Lewis
From: The Daily Telegraph
July 16, 2012 12:00AM
Due to the Australian carbon tax legislation becoming effective from the 1st of July 2012, we have been informed from our landfill suppliers that the price increase for tip fees will be in the vicinity of 15%. This means for all of our Perth skip bin customers that the price on all skip bins will increase from the 1st of July.
As you can understand the cost is not our own & must be passed on to the end user. The Household family assistance package from the federal Government is designed to offset costs such as this waste tipping increase.
The Bin Guys have been carbon neutral for many years offsetting our carbon emissions with Greenfleet Australia. Our efforts to recycle your waste from landfill is always increasing & we can assure you that we oppose the carbon tax in its current format.
Our new waste disposal structure will be available prior to the end of financial year. We thank you for your continued business.
Kind Regards,
The Bin Guys Management Team
Ever since the industrial revolution machines and automated processes have dominated manufacturing processes. Take the automotive manufacturing industry. Assembly lines comprise robots repeating movements mindlessly but with sub-millimetre precision. Cars are produced in their millions and shipped worldwide to ever demanding consumers.
One industry that perhaps has not implemented as many automated solutions as others is that of waste management. Given its unpredictable nature (you can never predict just what is going to be disposed of) the sector lends itself to a highly skilled workforce. From employees ‘on the front line’ collecting recyclables on the street to experts in the control rooms of waste to energy plants monitoring emissions; the industry has provided a variety of jobs for decades. But could this be about to change?
C&D waste challenge
Municipal waste to one side, it is construction and demolition (C&D) waste where the next advancement in automated sorting is taking place. And let’s face it – there’s enough of it. Estimates from Eurostat suggest that in 2006 alone, there was 870 million tonnes of C&D waste generated in the EU alone. Making up 25% of all waste generated in the region, clearly solutions are needed for the mountains of concrete, metals, glass, wood and asbestos generated each and every year.
This material is either sorted in large mechanised processing plants or manually by people. While the EU frowns on the latter, many people are employed in manual sorting, picking raw materials off of conveyors. And it is this manual process Finnish start up ZenRobotics is trying to change.
Started in 2007, the firm’s small team has more PhDs than most companies’ board members put together. It was the erratic nature of waste handling that first attracted ZenRobotics. “Succeed with waste, and you can do whole lot more,” says Rainer Rehn, chief commercial officer at ZenRobotics. “Today robots are widely used in other industries with more structured environments, but our scientists viewed waste handling as the real test. We have previously served other industries, e.g. nuclear power and waste incineration plants. Now we are focusing on C&D waste. The impact of robotic sorting is initially greatest here.”
A total of 16 companies were in the running for this trial – a clear sign of the appetite for automated solutions. This followed the technology being trialled in the firm’s own facility for two years.
So, the questions I know you are all thinking are ‘how does this process work?’ and ‘how does it differ to other sorting techniques?’.
Unlike robots used for automotive assembly, which repeat the same precise movement over and over again, the ZenRobotics process applies “sensor fusion and AI technologies”. In other words, the robots literally think for themselves. The firm says that “robot gripper” sometimes collides with objects, so it is equipped with pain sensors and a pain-avoidance reflex. But before I quiz Rehn over the serious stuff – such as operation efficiencies and the technology – I have to stop my imagination running away and ask the question whether ZenRobotics is ever concerned that its robots are so intelligent they become bored with sorting waste and decide to run away!
“Over the years we’ve speculated about this scenario extensively over beers!” he retorts, before adding: “For now, however, our robots are happily sorting waste.”
The Brain
So how does it work? A two-meter wide conveyor belt feeds the waste past a package of sensors including visible spectrum cameras, NIR spectroscopic cameras, 3D laser scanners and metal sensors. It’s important to note here that the actual robotic arm is supplied through a German company. And the NIR detection and analysis system is supplied by another manufacturer. All of this information is then condensed and fed to the ZenRobotics artificial intelligence (AI). This is known as “the brain” of the operation, which brings everything together and is the Finnish company’s patented work. Scanned objects are then analysed and following identification, the robotic arm picks up objects and deposits them into the correct containers. So far, three fractions – inert materials, wood and metals – are being identified for recycling. “Successful sorting is quite possible but not by itself – the waste needs to be pre-processed. It needs to be crushed and material that is too small needs to be separated, Also, two dimensional material, such as cardboard and plastics, must be separated out first. For the trial we have separated out three dimensional items which are then sorted out further by the robots.”
Commercial pay-back and practical reality
It is the phrase “commercial pay back” that is key here. Can facility managers really justify the initial investment into such an advanced system when they can instead rely on a team of workers paid a reduced salary?
Yes, is the short answer from ZenRobotics. “With the components we are currently using, the system replaces around 10-15 human pickers,” states Rehn enthusiastically. “The robots work day and night, they don’t have lunch breaks, they don’t have coffee breaks, they don’t go out for cigarettes, they don’t go home for sleep. If you look at picking speed, it depends on the human and the situation, but a typical picking cycle is between seven and 12 seconds for humans, whereas robots do the same easily in seconds.”
And it is over the course of a year that the chief commercial officer believes facilities will notice a difference.
“You need seven hour shifts to run facilities,” he says. “Waste workers work efficiently around 1600 hours per year. By the time you have taken off time for lunch breaks, getting changed and account for any time lost, you are close to 1000 hours. By the same measure, a robotic system, however, can work for 8000 hours per year.”
The all important word here is “payback” – the period it takes for companies to recoup their investment. Rehn says it depends on the facility, but generally speaking ZenRobotics calculates the payback to be less than two years.
ZenRobotic’s confidence and vision can’t be knocked. And with the firm boasting eight PhD caliber workers, it’s easy to be drawn into their belief that this could soon be a reality. You only have to watch the company’s corporate, albeit tongue-in-cheek produced video to get a feel for their international ambition.
Looking into his crystal ball, Rehn predicts that ten years from now, C&D waste processing will comprise “five to 10 robots working in fully automated plants without humans involved, in a 24/7 operation”.
Industry reaction & MSW challenges
“Even the most automated MRFs (material recycling facilities) utilise real people for quality checks, and for dealing with one of the biggest problems in a MRF: when materials overlay one another and can be hidden from the laser eye,” says Adam Read, global practice director for AEA Resource Efficiency. “And with unemployment figures running high around the world we may not want to embrace technology as much as we once did.”
On a positive note, Read says: “Necessity is the mother of invention, and if additional throughput is required to be processed at these sites, or if 24-7 processing becomes the norm, then perhaps the introduction of even more advanced technology could have a role to play.” If the system can prove successful in sorting C&D waste, then the question has to be asked about whether other materials – bottles, cans and paper – from the municipal stream could also be targeted?
And, if so, what does this mean for the increasing use of NIR equipment – could robots indeed be a threat to such tried and tested solutions already operating globally? It appears not.
“In the future we see robots and NIR systems working in a symbiotic relationship,” says Jonathan Clark, country manager, UK, TITECH Visionsort. “Robots are clearly not able to pick at the rate of air-jets, for bottles and cans, so this stream will continue to be processed by optical sorting equipment using the standard air ejection system.”
Interestingly, Clark refers to a previous unsuccessful trial using robot sorting technology but for municipal solid waste.
“We must remember that this type of technology has been trialled before,” he explains. “The Dutch company Bollegraaf ran trials in Holland a couple of years ago. This was a large scale pilot to sort the conventional mixed waste stream. Unfortunately it didn’t work. The high number of very variable items on the belt such as paper, or bottles presented too great a challenge.”
ARTICLE EXTRACTED & MODIFED FROM WASTE MANAGEMENT WORLD 2011