Tackle Renovation Junk With A Cost-Effective Bag Dumpster Solution

Whether you're remodeling a tired old bathroom, reforming your kitchen, or converting your garage into an apartment, the chances are you're going to produce a fair amount of renovation junk. There are several ways to get rid of it. If you've got a big enough truck, you might be able to take it to a local landfill or transfer station. Or you could have a service collect it and dispose of it for you. Likewise, hiring a big metal dumpster has long been a popular solution. And now, WM (formerly known as Waste Management Inc.) is offering Bagster, an option that could be a lot more convenient and save you money.

On the face of it, it's a really neat idea. You buy a WM Bagster bag online or from your local big box store. They cost around $30 and come wrapped in a bundle that's easy to carry and weighs under 6 pounds. When it's opened out, the tough polypropylene bag is 8 feet long by 4 feet wide by 2.5 feet high and can hold up to 3,300 pounds of renovation debris. You fill it up, you give WM a call, and they come and collect it. If you're tackling a DIY project of any size, it seems like an ideal solution.

You've probably been working on the correct order to structure your renovation project, but if you're doing it yourself, you don't necessarily know exactly when it's going to get started or how fast the work will progress. Hiring a dumpster and having it sit on your drive can get expensive if you don't need it right away. After a week or so, it either has to go back, or you have to pay again. If it must be left on the street, you'll probably need a permit.

A Bagster bag can be folded and stored in your garage or a cupboard until the precise moment you're ready to fill it. The only outlay at that point is the purchase price. So, if you have to stop your project halfway through, that's no big deal.

The Bagster bag has a capacity of 80 cubic feet, or 2.96 cubic yards. It can hold, for example, 47 sheets of drywall or 180 wall studs. For many renovation jobs, that's a pretty convenient size. The smallest dumpster available is typically 10 cubic yards. If you're not producing that much debris, that's a lot of wasted space you're paying for.

There are restrictions on the type of trash that can be thrown in the Bagster bag. Old paint and other chemicals can't be tossed in there. Neither can appliances, batteries, tires, and a bunch of other stuff — Bagster provides a list of prohibited items. To be fair, many of those things can't be put in a dumpster either. If you have items like that among your trash, you'll have to take them to a suitable disposal facility in your area.

Bagster's collection fee is anywhere from $100 to $300, depending on where you live. They'll collect within a 7-day period, or you can add $8 for a guaranteed time. For comparison, the average cost of a 10-yard dumpster is $480. So, if you only need one bag, the decision is straightforward — Bagster is the way to go. However, if you need two, the collection fee becomes significant. Bagster does give a $20 discount on the second bag, but if you're focused on using your renovation budget wisely, that may not be enough to swing it.

The Bagster service offers great convenience and will be a good choice in many cases. Of course, a lot depends on the size of the renovation project and the amount of debris, and there's a point where a traditional dumpster will be more economical. Estimating the likely volume of renovation junk is never easy, but stringing out the area in your yard may help you picture how much you could get in one of those bags.