What a clearance isScope
Three jobs sit under this heading and they look different on the ground. The first is the tail of a removal: what the household decided not to take, surveyed as its own list on the day of the survey and collected after the van has gone. The second is a garage, shed or loft on its own, usually a decade of things nobody owns any more. The third is a whole-property clearance, often after probate or at the end of a tenancy, where the instruction is to empty the building and leave it swept.
All three are quoted from volume and from access, the same two figures a removal is quoted from, and all three leave the property with one additional thing a removal does not need: a written description of what left and where it was taken.
Separated on site, not at the tipSegregation
A mixed load is the expensive load, and it is also the one that cannot be described honestly on a note. So the separation happens in the driveway while the property is being emptied, into streams that have somewhere different to go. Anything in good order and worth using again comes off the load first, because the cheapest stream is the one that is not waste.
Some separations are not a preference, they are a requirement. Plasterboard and other gypsum has to be kept out of a load containing biodegradable waste. Fridges, freezers and air-conditioning units contain refrigerant gas and foam and have to go to a facility set up to take them, which also means they are never tipped on their side. Mattresses are a stream of their own at most sites. Tyres, batteries, paint and anything with a flame symbol on it are all separate again.
The note the load travels withPaperwork
Under the duty of care in section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, controlled waste can only be passed to somebody authorised to take it, and the transfer has to be described in writing. That description is the transfer note, and it is the document that makes a clearance auditable rather than a van driving away.
On the transfer note, every time
- Address the waste came from
- the cleared property
- Description of the waste
- in plain words
- Six-digit waste code
- per the list of wastes
- Quantity and containment
- loose, bagged, caged
- Carrier registration number
- of whoever moves it
- Transferor and transferee
- both named and signed
- Date, time and place of transfer
- as it happened
No load leaves a property until those lines are filled in and a copy stays with the household.
Transfer notes have to be kept for two years. Where any part of a clearance is hazardous — a consignment note job rather than a transfer note job — that note is kept for three years instead. Both periods are statutory and both are what the records page is describing when it says a clearance file outlives the job.
Where each stream actually goesDestinations
Reuse goes on first and goes furthest: furniture in good order, white goods that work, tools, bicycles. It is offered on rather than tipped, and what cannot be placed rejoins the streams below.
Everything that is waste goes to a facility holding an environmental permit for that waste, which is the only kind of place a transfer note can name. A household waste recycling centre is not one of them for a job like this: those sites take household waste brought by householders, and a cleared load arriving on a commercial vehicle is trade waste no matter whose house it came out of. That distinction catches people out, and it is the reason a clearance costs something a car boot full does not.
Not taken at allRefused
Four things are refused outright, and the right answer in each case is a specialist rather than a cheaper van.
- Asbestos — garage roof sheets, old flue pipes, textured coatings. It needs a contractor licensed for it and a different disposal route entirely, and disturbing it to load it is the worst possible first step.
- Clinical and sharps waste — including needles left in a bathroom after a long illness. It has its own collection, arranged through the local authority or the surgery.
- Drums or containers of unknown liquid — nothing unlabelled is loaded; it is identified first or left for a hazardous collection.
- Anything the household does not own — items under a hire agreement, a landlord’s fixtures, or a neighbour’s belongings in a shared garage. Those are written on the sheet as left in place.
Everything above is decided at the survey, not in the driveway, which is why the survey sheet carries a separate clearance list from the start.