Dumpster Bags Vs. Dumpster Rental: Which One Is The Best Fit For Your Cleaning Project?
Dumpster bags are quickly becoming popular, and the companies who provide them claim that they are a less expensive option than renting a dumpster. You purchase a bag, place it on your property, and then have it picked up by your municipal waste management company or another private company after you've filled it up. Which is the best choice to handle your waste? Read on for a comparison between dumpster bags and rented dumpsters to figure out which disposal method best fits your cleaning project.
Capacity
The biggest difference between a dumpster rental and a dumpster bag is capacity. Dumpster bags typically hold three cubic yards, but some of the larger ones can hold up to five. The smallest dumpsters that are available to rent can hold five or six cubic yards, and those aren't even available in most areas — typically, the smallest dumpsters available from a dumpster rental service hold ten cubic yards.
Even dumpsters fill up quickly during cleaning projects. Dumpster bags, since they're less than one-third the size of a small dumpster, will fill up even more rapidly. Most projects will require multiple dumpster bags, and you'll need to pay pickup fees for each one you're using. This often makes using dumpster bags more expensive than using a dumpster rental service except for very small-scale projects.
Rental Duration
When you use a dumpster bag for a cleaning project, you purchase the bag upfront and place it somewhere on your front lawn. Since you own the bag, the company responsible for picking it up doesn't care how long it's on your property — you just call them to pick it up when you're ready to have it hauled away. A dumpster rental service, on the other hand, will rent out a dumpster for a set period of time. This is typically one or two weeks. If you go over this time limit, you'll need to pay extra fees.
You may be working on a long-term project that generates a lot of waste. For example, spending the weekends reupholstering the furniture in your home can require a few months of work, and you'll need someplace to dump all of the old fabric. In this case, a dumpster bag makes sense. However, projects like this are usually fairly rare. For most cleaning projects, you'll be able to rapidly fill a dumpster without needing to worry about the time limit.
Durability
Dumpster bags are made out of canvas that's reinforced with plastic. The plastic reinforcement makes them fairly durable, but they're still susceptible to being torn open by heavy objects with sharp edges. This is most likely to happen when the dumpster bag is being picked up by the removal truck's crane, so a split bag will result in your waste being scattered all over your front lawn. You'll have to take care when filling a dumpster bag to make sure that no sharp edges can brush up against the bag and tear it open.
You don't have to worry about this happening when you rent a dumpster since they're made out of metal. You simply need to avoid throwing any prohibited items into the dumpster like batteries and chemicals, as these items can't be dumped into landfills.
Ultimately, using a dumpster rental service is the best option for nearly every project. Dumpster bags are only preferable in two instances. The first is when you have a very small-scale project that may take months to complete. The second is when a dumpster can't be placed on your property at all, which makes using a dumpster bag your only option. In any other situation, contacting a dumpster rental service and renting a dumpster is the best choice.