Skip Bin Permits: All You Need to Know

If you’re doing a clean-up at home or work, hiring a skip bin is the perfect way to get the job done fast. However, placing your skip bin in the wrong location or violating your permit can result in fines and other repercussions from your local council, so it’s important that you know exactly what you can and cannot do with your skip bin once it’s in your possession.

To help you avoid an unwanted fine, we’ve put together this guide so that you can navigate the skip bin hire and permit process with ease.

Permit or no permit?

When hiring a skip bin, many people are unsure of if they need a permit or not in the first place. What it comes down to is where you’ll be keeping your skip bin hire and if it will be placed on public or private property.

If you have enough room to keep your skip bin within the confines of your private property, you should be able to do so without a permit. However, if you need to place your skip bin on public property, a permit from your local council will be required.

For those who have the room to keep their skip bin on their private property, you’ll want to avoid damaging your garden or any area of your landscaping. We recommend you place your skip bin on wooden planks so that you can help reduce any potential damage caused by filling and moving the skip.

Permit period

The maximum permit period for skip bins in most local councils is 5 days. To ensure that there’s enough time for your council to properly assess the permit request and make sure it’s safe to keep the skip bin in your proposed location, you need to submit your application at least five working days prior to its delivery date.

Operator licences

In Victoria, some local councils require skip bin operators to have a licence that permits them to operate in their municipality. With this in mind, before enlisting the services of any skip bin hire company you should make sure that they have a licence that permits them to work within your local council.

Access

There are two areas of accessibility that you need to consider before placing your skip: the truck’s access to your site and your access to the skip. If the truck dropping your skip bin off cannot access your chosen location, then you won’t be able to get it there. Furthermore, if you can’t access the spot properly, you’ll have trouble placing all of your waste in there. To avoid this, make sure to be on the lookout for anything that could cause potential access issues, such as trees, traffic and powerlines.

Pedestrian and vehicle traffic

If you have to keep your skip bin on public property, the most important thing is that you don’t block any footpaths or interfere with pedestrian or vehicle flow. If your proposed location for your skip bin does either of these, your request for a permit will be denied.

Your skip bin also cannot be placed in any time-restricted parking areas, such as loading zones, bus zones or no-stopping areas and needs to be at least 10 metres away from any intersections.

Use between sunset and sunrise

To make sure that motorists can clearly see your skip bin, if it’s outside between sunset and sunrise it will need to have an amber light placed on it to alert them of its presence. However, this rule does not apply if the skip bin is under 1.8 metres wide or comes with reflecting bands that meet the VicRoads code of practice.