Babies to boom in skip hire
Patricia Roberts
KATY ATTWOOD is out to bin the cowboy image of skip-hire firms.
With husband Mark, she has just launched an online environmentally friendly service based in West Gorton, which promises to recycle 70 per cent of waste collected across the whole of Greater Manchester.
And the firm, Topskips.com, is also offering a novel "baby" skip, which it believes will change the face of the skip hire business.
The baby skip is a one-tonne capacity heavy-duty refuse sack which is simple to use, doesn't take up the same room as a steel skip and is much cheaper to hire.
"We set up the baby skips because we know how disruptive it can be to have a skip stuck on your drive. Our baby skips are small enough not to disrupt your daily life, but are really robust," said Katy, who says Manchester City Council has shown interest in the idea.
Katy has a business background, having worked in accountancy and shipping around the world. Now she aims to give a new friendly face to the skip trade.
She said: "There are a lot of cowboys in the skip-hire industry. When we did our research before setting up the business, we found massive discrepancies in price, service and punctuality.
"When Mark and I phoned round for quotes to hire a skip, not only were there wide differences in the prices quoted by the different companies, but the same firms quoted different prices to him and to me - and they were always dearer when they were dealing with the woman!
"We wanted to take the lottery element out of hiring a skip.
"Our aim is to make the whole industry more friendly and environmentally responsible."
Katy says that Greater Manchester produces around 32 lbs of waste per household per week, and recycles only three per cent of the waste, disposing of 4.6 million tonnes of waste in ever-shrinking landfill each year.
Topskip has a facility for sorting waste, into paper, plastic, wood, etc, and then re-cycling the various components.
"We take pride in the fact that we promise to recycle at least 70 per cent of people's rubbish and regularly reach a much higher figure than that," she said.
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