Skip Bin History

Waste management

The use of skip bins, also known as ‘dumpsters’ in other parts of the world, might have started with beekeepers in Europe sometime in the 1700s. At that time, beekeepers used baskets made of straw, wicker, or hollow logs to build the colonies. The term ‘skip bin’ comes from the Norse language ‘skeppa’, and the Old English language ‘sceppe’, which means ‘basket’.

The use of skep for the bees’ homes became outdated by the 1800s. But people in those days still referred to the thatching of the roof of a house with dry vegetation as a ‘skep’.

Skip bins in mining

The Industrial Revolution introduced new technologies to the world. In the coal mines in Europe, workers made used of extra-large wheeled baskets, which they called ‘skeps’, to more easily move materials around.

Coal miners used skeps as to measure what they had dug out of the ground. A skep roughly scaled about 17.4 litres. Eventually, ‘skep’ became ‘skip’, which is still the word miners use today to refer to the steel containers that run on rail tracks to transport coal out of the mines.

Invention of the curent skip bin

Sometime in the 1920s, containers resembling the coal miners’ skips appeared in the Southport area in England being used for waste removal. The idea came about when an employee of  a truck manufacturing company, suggested adding detached boxes on the back of utility vehicles during a meeting with Southport city engineers who presented a problem about collecting wastes.

Since horse-drawn rubbish removal carts could not travel long distances, the trucks that hauled the bins would be more efficient in collecting and bringing household waste to the local landfills. The invention became known as the Pagefield system.

Soon, more truck makers around the world followed the system. Some even made improvements to the mechanisms to solve the problem of collecting rubbish in progressing cities. The invention and manufacture of these trucks also gave birth to skip bins for hire.

With the property boom in the 1960s, expanding communities needed to come up with good waste management solutions. Skip bins were made available for household and building waste clean-ups.

Australia and the skip bins

Australia also made use of horse-drawn carts to collect bins and transport wastes like newspapers and bottles from households from the 1920s to the 1950s. But as the population expanded and consumption grew, the volume of waste also increased.

Like others, the country was adopting the skin bins hire system by the 1960s. Local councils enlisted premier skip bins services for regular collections among residential areas. These companies would then bring the waste at incinerators, dumpsites, or recycling centres.