The most cost-effective way to get rid of your unwanted items

The free-of-cost service, founded by Ajman resident Faisal Khan, would collect unwanted items from UAE homes and either sell them at a low price, donate them, or discard them.

Over the last couple of years, several copycat junk removal services have sprung up, many with the same or similar names such as Remove My Junk, Junk Removals, Free Junk Removals and Junk Removal Dubai.

I know that some companies charge Dh200 to Dh400 per visit and they claim to be our company … but that’s not us. Our service is Free of charge.

Faisal Khan, founder of Take My Junk

“I know that some companies charge Dh200 to Dh400 per visit and they claim to be our company … but that’s not us,” says Mr Khan, a Canadian who moved to the UAE 11 years ago. “We get this question every day from customers: Do you charge? … Because there’s a lot of misunderstanding.”

However, some customers have complained that even the original Take My Junk, which has an optional tipping policy, has asked for payments to remove bulky items. Mr Khan says he has fired some staff who customers complained asked for money.

UAE residents have many options to sell their items, whether they are decluttering or moving out, from dubizzle.com to Facebook groups to flea markets. But what happens if an item won’t sell or is unusable? The last thing people want to do is pay to get rid of their rubbish. Here we outline the options available.

Use your time at home to get rid of your unwanted items

As part of precautionary measures to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the UAE government has urged people to stay at home unless “absolutely necessary”.

While it is a good time to sort through cupboards and drawers, it is advisable to avoid contact with others. Therefore, use this time to decide what you want to discard at a later date.

Mr Khan says Take My Junk has taken measures to ensure its employees and customers are protected, such as having their workers wear gloves. Some residential buildings have asked staff to have their temperature taken before entering.

Follow the recommended guidance from authorities, while taking quarantining as an opportunity to organise and eventually clear unnecessary junk.

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The services that will take your items for free

Sharjah residents can make use of Bee’ah’s “You Call We Haul” free service to dispose of bulky waste. It accepts items such as electronics and furniture, but they must be disassembled and moved to the ground floor for pickup if you’re in an apartment. The service does not accept construction materials.

Mr Khan insists that Take My Junk does not charge to remove items. They take anything from the home or office that is “usable”, including e-waste and furniture, but not garden waste.

“If people do want to give a tip, they give a tip, but we don’t demand money,” he says.

Still, Take My Junk’s model has shifted from its early days. It no longer donates items to the needy, for example. Mr Khan says the company used to donate sofas, “but we’ve delivered so many sofas that there are no camps now that don’t have sofas”.

“We’re not a charity. We don’t claim to be a charity,” Mr Khan adds.

Take My Junk is a business, which means overhead costs need to be covered. The costs for the company with 200 employees, 29 lorries and a 100,000 square-foot warehouse, doing an average of 250 to 300 pickups per day, come to around Dh600,000. The revenue from selling unwanted items comes to “the same”, Mr Khan says.

The company used to sell about 80 per cent of collected items and 20 per cent ended up in the landfill. Landfill charges in Ajman went up from Dh210 a tonne to Dh250 in January, prompting Take My Junk to invest in crushing and shredding machines that have reduced the percentage that goes to the dump to 8 per cent.

“Landfill charges have gone up all over the country,” Mr Khan says. “Because of that, companies are forced to send less stuff to the landfill, which is what the environment needs.”

Take My Junk reuses 1,200 tonnes a month by repairing, refurbishing or recycling items such as broken vacuum cleaners and rusted bicycles. It gives about 50 tonnes of wood a month to Union Paper Mills, which uses the material as fuel to power its factories. About 75 tonnes ends up in the landfill.

While less waste in landfills is what the environment needs, junk removal companies that don’t have the volumes to offset costs either pass on the price to customers or they cannot survive.

Beware of ‘free’ removal services that charge

One copycat company called Take My Junk Removal, formally registered as Nadim Bin Khadim Furniture Trading, advertises its “free of cost” services online. But Tanveer Hussein, the co-owner, says they will charge depending on the type of item. “If it is garbage and we have to throw it”, the company charges Dh100 to Dh150, he says.

The company is small – with eight employees, three trucks and a Deira store that sells household items – and Mr Hussein sees it as a paid disposal service.