Clean fill: how to cut disposal costs on concrete, pavers and tile

In plain terms, clean fill is heavy, inert material like concrete, pavers, tile, brick and block with nothing else mixed in. No lumber, no roots, no trash, no metal scraps, no plastic. When it stays that way, it can be handled separately from mixed construction debris.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection's construction and demolition debris recycling page lists "concrete, block, masonry and other clean debris" among materials used as borrow pit fill, and crushed concrete and brick among materials used in road construction and drainage. It also notes that a common practice in South Florida is to use "clean" concrete as lake fill, and that recovered material "may be used as clean fill in off-site operations, provided that the material is safe."

That's general guidance, not a rule about your specific load. What counts as clean fill can depend on where the material is going, so tell us what's in the load before you fill it and we'll tell you whether it can go as clean fill.

Because a mixed load is handled as mixed debris. Once broken concrete is buried under lumber, old furniture or bags of trash, it can't be pulled back out and sent for recycling. The whole load goes the same way, at mixed-debris disposal.

Florida DEP's recycling page makes the same point from the recycler's side: "A major factor in the success of a recycling operation is the degree of contamination of the material," and "Purity of the recovered product encourages higher resale prices." Clean material is simply more useful than mixed material.

On our own jobs, that's where the savings came from. Keeping the concrete clean meant it could be recycled instead of dumped. There's no set clean fill price on our pricing page, because it depends on the material and the job, so ask us how a clean fill trailer works for yours when you book.

Three recent jobs show how it works in practice. In each one, our part was supplying the trailer or dumpster and hauling the clean fill.

• Weston pool deck. We dropped off an 18-yard trailer early in the morning for a pool company's pool deck demo. The load was kept as clean fill (concrete and dirt) and recycled, saving the customer disposal fees. The pool company did the demolition.
• Another pool deck demo. We dropped off a dumpster for a pool deck demolition, and multiple loads of clean fill (concrete, tile and pavers) were recycled to cut the dumping cost. We handled the dumpster and the clean fill loads; we did not do the demolition.
• Coral Gables concrete. We hauled multiple dumpster loads of clean fill concrete for a contractor's oceanfront project.

The common thread: the concrete, tile, pavers and dirt went into their own loads. None of these jobs mixed clean material with the rest of the project's debris. See more about concrete and clean fill dumpster rentals.

A small amount of the wrong material can turn a clean load into a mixed one. Keep these out of a clean fill trailer:

• Wood, including deck boards, concrete form boards and stakes
• Roots, stumps, branches and other yard waste
• Trash, bags, cardboard and buckets
• Plastic, landscape fabric and pipe
• Old furniture, fixtures or anything else from a cleanout
• Anything with chemicals on it, like paint, sealer, fuel or pool chemicals

Florida DEP's page notes that "the presence of hazardous chemicals in the C&D waste may limit the reuse options" for recovered material. Separately, paint and paint cans, propane tanks, tires, batteries and hazardous materials aren't accepted in our dumpsters at all; if they turn up in a load, it is returned to your job site and a $100 surcharge applies.

If you're not sure about something, like wire mesh in a slab, mortar on the back of tile, or a layer of sand under pavers, ask before it goes in. A photo answers most of those questions.

Very heavy. The U.S. EPA's volume-to-weight conversion factors list concrete at about 860 pounds per cubic yard and dirt and sand at about 929 pounds per cubic yard. Those are averages; solid chunks and wet soil weigh more, so a couple of cubic yards of broken concrete or dirt can use up a ton.

That's why concrete jobs run out of weight long before they run out of space. Our standard dump trailer rental includes 7 days and 1 ton, with $120 per ton over that. Clean fill trailers are arranged on request, so confirm how weight is handled for your load when you book.

Breaking concrete into smaller pieces makes it easier to load and lets it sit flatter, but it doesn't change the weight. Plan on more than one load for a large patio, slab or pool deck, like the pool deck job above that took multiple loads.

1. Tell us up front. Before delivery, say you have concrete, pavers or tile and ask for a clean fill trailer.
2. Do the clean material first. Break out the concrete, lift the pavers or pull the tile before you start on wood, fixtures or trash, so the clean material never touches the rest.
3. Plan two streams. If the project also produces mixed debris, plan a separate load or a separate trailer for it rather than one mixed load.
4. Load it clean. Keep bags, buckets, boards and roots out. If something gets in, pull it before pickup.
5. Send photos if anything is unclear. Text them to (954) 247-1399 and we'll tell you whether it still goes as clean fill.

If you'd rather not handle the break-out or the weight at all, we also do pool deck and concrete removal as a demolition job, keeping clean concrete, pavers and tile separate as clean fill where possible.