Review: VIP Bin Cleaning Service

If you live in a house in Metro Vancouver, I'm sure you know about the changes coming to garbage pickup. If you missed the memo, starting May 1st, the city will be picking up green waste weekly, but only picking up garbage every other week. This means that people who aren't already recycling, composting & trying to reduce their garbage output will have to get their act in gear as soon as possible. It also means that there are going to be some smelly garbage bins out there.

Photo courtesy of WashMyBin.com

I've recently learned about a solution to the stink: VIP Bin Cleaning, a global bin-cleaning franchise business. Their cleaning process helps with the smell & bacteria, potentially alleviating pest problems--all those lovely critters that like to munch on your garbage.

Here's how VIP Bin Cleaning works: a customer signs up for service on washmybin.com and provides an address. VIP's mobile machine arrives the day of bin pickup. The bin is cleaned using recycled water in 2-3 minutes, or 5-10 minutes for first-time bins. A sticker indicating the last wash date is placed on the bin, and the customer is e-mailed. You do not have to be home during the service. Watch their video to see a demo.

Besides the fact that it leaves your bins clean, VIP Bin Cleaning actually saves water too. Their machine requires less than two litres to clean each bin, versus the average nine litres you would probably use if you were to clean your bin yourself.

Colin Bell, Owner and Chief Bin Cleaner, says, "We want to protect families from bacteria and pests with monthly cart cleaning. We clean your green and garbage carts using our advanced cleaning technology, which leaves no mess behind."

Seriously clean green waste & garbage bins

We got to try this service out last week & I was quite impressed at how clean the bins are. Fortunately for you, I forgot to take a 'before' photo, so you don't have to look at what a disgusting state our bins were in before VIP Bin Cleaning came by. I'm not sure when the garbage & green waste bins were last cleaned & they weren't new five years ago when we bought the house, so I'll leave it up to your imagination as to how they smelled. When I walked up to the bins to inspect them after I got home, the outsides were clean & I could actually smell the cherry scented disinfectant they used on the bins earlier that day.

VIP Bin Cleaning service costs $8 per bin. If you sign up for a year's service, you save a little. Getting two bins cleaned every other month is $82 a year. For stinkier or more pest-prone bins, monthly cleaning of one bin is $96 a year, or for both bins cleaned monthly it's less: $164 annually. Considering how disgusting & time-consuming the bin cleaning process is for us to do ourselves without a power washer, I think the service is really worth it.


Disclaimer: I received a free bin cleaning from VIP Bin Cleaning. The opinions above are my own.




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