A full van load of garden waste is around 12 cubic yards, roughly 70 filled bin bags, or the clippings and prunings from a decent-sized garden tidy. Collections are priced by how much of the van you fill: about £80 for a car boot, £120 for a quarter van, £190 for a half van, £260 for three-quarters and £330 for a full van, with disposal included. The awkward part is that garden waste is springy and full of air, so the same pile can fill half a van or a whole one depending on how it is cut and stacked.
The load sizes, with prices
| Load size | Roughly | In plain terms | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Car boot | about 1 cubic yard | around 6 bin bags, or one builder's bulk bag | £80 |
| Quarter van | about 3 cubic yards | around 18 bin bags, a small pile of hedge clippings | £120 |
| Half van | about 6 cubic yards | around 35 bin bags, a season's prunings and a lawn's worth of turf | £190 |
| Three-quarter van | about 9 cubic yards | around 50 bin bags, a large hedge trim | £260 |
| Full van | about 12 cubic yards | around 70 bin bags, one small tree cut up, or a full garden tidy | £330 |
Collections are exempt from our usual job minimum, so a car boot load really is £80 rather than being pushed up to a minimum charge. Prices include taking the waste away and disposing of it legally. Van sizes vary between firms, though: some use a Luton box van of about 20 cubic yards as their "full van", so ask what a full load means in their vehicle before you book.
A cubic yard, the unit all this is built on, is about the size of a standard washing machine, or six filled bin bags of loose clippings. Picture the space, not the weight: a cubic yard of leafy prunings weighs very little, and a cubic yard of wet soil weighs well over a tonne.
What bulks a load out
These are the things that turn a modest-looking heap into a full van:
- Brash. Whole branches with side shoots on trap enormous amounts of air, and take far more space than the same material snedded and cut to length.
- Conifer clippings. Leylandii and other conifer trimmings are springy and refuse to compress. A hedge trim that looks like half a van can easily be three-quarters.
- Uncut brambles. They hook into each other and hold their shape, so a bramble pile is mostly air.
- Leafy summer growth. The same hedge cut in July fills more van than in February.
- Bulky woody stems. Buddleia, elder and old shrubs with stiff, forked stems do not stack.
Grass, weeds, leaves and cut-to-length logs pack down well and take less room than people expect.
Why soil, turf and rubble are priced differently
Volume is not the only limit. A van has a payload, often around a tonne for a typical tipper, and heavy waste reaches that limit long before the van looks full. Freshly dug topsoil runs about 1.3 to 1.7 tonnes per cubic metre, turf with soil attached is similar and heavier again after rain, and brick rubble and hardcore run about 1.4 to 1.8 tonnes per cubic metre. One cubic metre of rubble outweighs the payload of most vans on its own. Disposal is charged by weight at the tip too, and inert and mixed waste go through different, dearer routes than clean green waste. That is why soil, turf, rubble, hardcore, old fencing and general rubbish are quoted separately, and why a mix of that kind adds about 20 per cent on our card. If your pile is mostly soil or hardcore, a grab lorry or a skip may work out cheaper than a van, so say so when you ask for a price.
How to stack a pile so it costs less
You are paying for space in a van, so the more you take out of the pile beforehand, the smaller the band you land in.
- Cut to length. Anything longer than about a metre should be shortened. Loppers and a pruning saw over an evening can save a whole band.
- Sned the side shoots off larger branches and stack the poles together.
- Stack, do not heap. A neat stack against a wall takes half the room of the same material thrown in a mound.
- Bag the loose stuff. Grass, weeds, leaves and small clippings stack squarely in bags. Keep them liftable and tread the contents down as you go.
- Keep soil and rubble separate and say how much there is. A barrow of rubble in a green pile can change the whole job's disposal route.
- Keep it dry. A tarpaulin over the pile before collection keeps the weight down.
- Clear the route. Move cars, unlock the side gate, cut back anything overhanging the path. Loading time is part of the price.
This also makes a quote more accurate: if a crew arrives to find twice the pile they were shown, the price changes on the day.
Bagged or loose are both fine, and our quote form asks which so the crew brings the right kit. Bags are easier to count and easier to carry through a house or a narrow side gate, so bagging up a pile behind the house usually gets you a keener price. Avoid old rubble sacks stuffed with soil: nobody can lift them.
When a clearance price beats a van load
Green waste collection assumes the waste is already cut and piled. If the garden still needs cutting down first, that is garden clearance, priced by how overgrown it is rather than by van load: about £220 to £320 for a light garden, £380 to £600 for a moderate one and £650 to £1,000 for a heavy one, waste included. A garden nobody has touched for years gets a free survey instead of a guess, and so does anything estimated over £1,200. As a rule of thumb, if you would need three or more van loads, ask for a clearance price: it is usually less than the loads added together.
Getting it collected
We are an introducer: we pass your enquiry to one local specialist covering your area, who confirms a fixed price from your photos. Start with green waste removal for a pile that is ready to go, or overgrown garden clearance if it needs cutting first. Prices are in the garden clearance cost guide. Whoever you use, check they are a registered waste carrier: you are legally responsible for where your waste ends up, as fly-tipping and cheap garden clearance explains.
Questions
How many bin bags is a half van load?
Around 35 filled bags of loose garden waste, or about six cubic yards. The count drops if the bags hold heavy, wet material and rises if they are full of light clippings.
Is a van load cheaper than a skip?
Often, for garden waste, because a van load includes the labour to load it and a skip price does not. A skip also needs somewhere legal to stand, with a permit for the road. For heavy soil and rubble, a skip or grab lorry is usually better value.
Can I put soil and rubble in with the garden waste?
Say so in advance and it can be priced in, but not at the green waste rate: heavy and mixed waste goes through a different disposal route and adds about 20 per cent on our card. Hiding it in the pile only means the price changes when the crew arrives.
What counts as a full van?
On our price card a full van is about 12 cubic yards of loose garden waste. Firms use different vehicles, so check what their full load means in cubic yards rather than assuming every "van load" is the same.