Block Builder Aidan Reveals Why BINGO is their Top Choice for all things waste

Managing multiple renovations is a huge job, so how does The Block keep their site running?

On any building site, the amount of unused product, recovered materials and plain old rubbish that accumulates can be staggering.

Demolition of existing structures can result in tonnes of rubble, timber, wiring, pipes and more.

Then there’s the offcuts, excess materials and day-to-day leftovers of a full team… it all soon mounts up.

Times that by five and you get an idea of what The Block builders are up against, says Aidan O’Shannessy, CEO of Nine In Six Construction, the builders behind the top-rating television renovation series.

“The build-up of waste on The Block never sees to amaze me,” Aidan says.

“I mean on any construction side it's a lot, but when you look at what we generate in such a short amount of time, it’s just incredible.”

And if the waste builds up, he says, everything stops.

“As soon as the site starts to clog up everything goes south,” he says, “onsite efficiency drops, morale drops, everything goes.”

From a builder’s perspective, it’s impossible to work if there’s no space for trades, nowhere to put incoming materials and worst of all, the site becomes a safety hazard.

And from the contestant’s side, the challenge at hand goes from being tough but achievable to completely overwhelming.

“When the bins are full, people don't see there's light at the end of the tunnel,” Aidan says.

“After a tough day if there’s an empty bin out the front of their house, they know they can go and spend an hour tidying up after their trades have gone and then first thing in the morning everyone is happy walking onto that site and ready to start again.

“But if there's a full bin out the front and they’ve got nowhere to put their waste, I can guarantee you they're not even going to try and clean up… and that compounds.”

That’s where BINGO comes in, he says.

BINGO provides end-to-end solutions across the resource management supply chain including collection, processing and recovery, disposal and recycled products.

“BINGO supports customers to achieve their sustainability objectives,” says BINGO’s Head of Sustainability Matt Hyatt.

“By focusing on recycling rather than disposal, we can materially reduce carbon emissions and achieve a significantly better sustainability outcome.

“At BINGO, we believe Australia should be striving to meet global recycling best practice of 100% diversion of waste from landfill.”

And that’s exactly the target BINGO and The Block had this year, with some impressive statistics from the waste collected at Phillip Island.

Recyclable materials recovered this year include:

“Nothing surprises me anymore when it comes to the volume of waste that The Block generates but those are some pretty impressive stats!” Aidan says.

“And what’s most impressive is the amount of material that is being genuinely recycled and is able to be reused somewhere else.”

And just as importantly, it’s collected regularly. 

“I can’t overstate the importance of having BINGO as a partner with the service they provide,” Aidan says.

“On The Block we don't have time to wait, we don't have time for a delay, so having that clockwork service of bin changeovers is key to our execution of the series and the builds.” 

It’s the same as a regular build, he explains, just highly compressed. 

“People say The Block’s not realistic with our time frames but if you look at an average home bathroom renovation for example, that would normally take four to six weeks at home and need two to three 6m bins,” Aidan says.

“Yes, we do it in a week but if you actually look at the amount of man-hour resources that go into that week and you extrapolate that out it's about exactly the same as a regular build and we still fill two to three bins – we just do it in five days.”

The biggest difference he says, is that on “The Block if the bins are not emptied regularly, everything stops.”

“That’s why the service that BINGO provided us and the organisation between the guys on site and BINGO was so crucial.,” he sums up.

“We had the peace of mind of knowing our waste was being handled responsibly in a time frame that is well outside the norm. I don’t know how we could have done it without them.”