Invercargill Skip Company Cleaning Up
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When Southland man Dan Butterfield was renovating his house in 2015, he struggled to hire skips to deal with tonnes of construction waste.
He thought there should be an easier way to do this – but at this time didn’t have the solution.
In 2017, Butterfield was watching the Invercargill truck parade with his wife, Kereana, when he said: “I’d love to have my own trucks in the parade one day”.
About the same time, he ended up with about 40 extra skip bins at his engineering company after an order fell through.
So he decided to start a business with them.
That is how Butterfield, 28, founded Kiwi Skips, a 100% Southland owned and operated bin and skip hire company, now with four trucks and a fifth being built.
“Kiwi Skips is a fun, easy and friendly company with fixed prices so our customers don’t get any nasty surprises.”
Butterfield said it often worked out cheaper to get a skip than to take several loads of rubbish to the transfer station, and was far more convenient.
They had been inundated with positive feedback, with people jumping at the chance to declutter their homes, garages and sheds or have a good clean up around the section, he said.
“People are just loving us, which is funny because they’re just hiring a skip.”
The Kiwi Skips website makes booking a skip simple at any time of day, and with a new app in development customers will soon be able to arrange deliveries and empties at the touch of a button.
“It will be great for people like builders, with multiple sites and skips being regularly serviced, or our green-waste wheelie bin customers who are regularly requesting empties. We can make their lives so much easier.” Butterfield said.
“We’re responding to the way our customers want to connect with us. I think what we’re doing is a pretty cool thing.”
One concerning trend Kiwi Skips had noticed this year was a jump in illegal dumping around the Southland region.
They had been getting calls from clients needing to get a skip to clean up rubbish dumped – mainly in rural areas, he said.
“We want to discourage illegal dumping. People are actually going out of their way to dump a trailer load somewhere they shouldn’t. It’s getting worse and worse.”
Butterfield said their mission was to make it as easy and cost effective as possible for people to deal responsibly with their waste. Kiwi Skips has several waste minimisation initiatives in the pipeline, he said.
“We care about waste minimisation, where waste ultimately ends up,” Butterfield said.
He said Kiwi Skips can handle all types of waste whether it’s for home or business. The company offers short and long-term skip hire options with a range of sizes.