Juggling fulltime work and kids

If you are an elder considering a skip bin hire for a home project, there are several safety tips you should keep in mind. If you want to avoid injuring yourself or anyone else, take a look at these ideas. They will allow you to use your skip as safely as possible:

1. Opt for a door

If you have strength or mobility issues due to aging, a door can be an essential part of the skip you hire. Doors allow you to walk your rubbish into the skip and set it down. You don't have to lift heavy items and hoist them over the side of the bin.

This tip is especially important for elders, as thousands of elders suffer from debilitating back pain, and if you want to avoid that, you need to protect your back from strain and injury.

2. Don't hire a skip with a ramp

Many skip bins offer ramps instead of doors. A low ramp is fine, but if the skip has a high ramp extending from the ground to the top edge of the skip, that can be dangerous. It is especially dangerous if you are unsteady on your feet, as that increases your chances of falling off the ramp.

3. Avoid getting the floor of the skip wet

As you walk in and out of your skip bin with numerous loads of rubbish, you need to take care that you don't fall. Falling is an extremely common risk for seniors, and after a fall, nearly a third (30 percent) of seniors have to receive serious medical attention.

Ideally, you should take care to protect yourself against falls in all situations, but with your skip bin, in particular, you can avoid falls by keeping it dry. Do not throw any liquids in to it unless they are in a sealed container. Also, close the lid of the skip at night or cover it with a tarp so rain doesn't fall into it.

4. Make a loading plan

To protect others, you need to load your skip carefully. You want to load it relatively evenly so that it doesn't tip over on you or on anyone passing your home. Even loading also prevents it from tipping over while it is being transported.

To load your skip as evenly as possible, make a plan of the order you want to load your skip before you start throwing anything away. Load it evenly from front to back, but also try to put the heaviest items on the bottom.