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Demox

Miami-Dade County

Debris Removal and Disposal

Containers placed and swapped, or trucks loaded direct, with the debris separated at source and the disposal tickets handed over.

Who usually calls

Someone with a pile and a deadline: a contractor whose own skip service is the bottleneck, an owner after a strip-out, a builder who needs the lot clear before the next trade lands. The buyer cares about how fast a full container goes away and whether the paperwork will stand up.

Demolition makes a pile. Getting the pile off the site is a separate trade with a separate permit, and on most jobs it is the part that decides whether the programme holds, because a full container that nobody swaps stops the machine as surely as a missing permit does.

Two ways to run it. A roll-off container is dropped where the machine can reach it, loaded, taken away full and replaced empty, which suits a job that produces steadily over days or weeks. Or a truck is loaded directly from the machine and driven straight to the transfer station, which suits a site with nowhere to stand a container, a right of way that cannot be occupied, or a volume large enough that swapping containers would be the slow part. Most jobs end up using both.

Separation happens at source, in the container, not afterwards at the gate. A transfer station charges more to sort a mixed load than it costs to keep clean concrete, clean timber and metal apart while loading, and on a demolition that difference is a real line rather than a rounding error. Clean fill and clean concrete are also the two streams with somewhere cheaper to go.

Hauling in Miami-Dade is permitted work. County Code chapter 15 requires a Department of Solid Waste Management permit before anyone collects, removes or transports waste for hire over a public road here, and construction and demolition debris is one of the waste types on the application. The permit number, along with the hauler's name, the business tax receipt number and the vehicle tare weight, has to be marked on the side of every truck and every container in letters of at least two inches. So you can check it from across the site, and you should.

Open-top container beside a part-stripped building, grapple dropping broken concrete into it, a second container waiting behind.
Open-top container beside a part-stripped building, grapple dropping broken concrete into it, a second container waiting behind. Generated footage, not a job of ours and not a recording of one. It shows what the scope looks like. Our own work goes up as clients release it.

Scope

What is in the job.

Included

  • Container delivered to an agreed position, with the swing and reach of the loading machine thought about before it is dropped rather than after
  • Swap-outs on call, so a full container is not what stops the job
  • Direct truck loading where a standing container does not suit the site or the right of way
  • Separation at source into the streams the receiving facility prices differently
  • Haulage to a permitted transfer station or landfill that accepts the material
  • Weight tickets and disposal records handed over, which is what a permit close-out and an insurer both eventually ask for
  • The site left swept where the container stood
Open-top container beside a part-stripped building, grapple dropping broken concrete into it, a second container waiting behind.
Licensed stock photograph of the same kind of work.

What moves the price

We do not publish a rate for this, because a number given without seeing the site is either useless or untrue. These are the things that decide it.

  • Volume, which on a demolition is driven by the material rather than the floor area: a concrete slab and the same area of timber partition are not the same job
  • Weight, because disposal is sold by the ton and concrete is heavy in a way that bagged fit-out waste is not
  • How mixed the load is, since a sorted load and a mixed load go to different gate rates
  • Where the container can legally stand. On private ground it is a placement decision; in a street or right of way it is a permit, and in some municipalities an approval of the location before the permit
  • Distance to a facility that will take the material, which is a real cost in a county where asbestos waste has only one destination
  • Access and turning room for a roll-off truck, which is a bigger vehicle than people picture
  • Whether anything in the load is regulated, because abatement waste does not travel with general construction debris

Permits

Where this scope sits with the county.

No contractor licence under chapter 489 is needed to carry debris away. A Miami-Dade Department of Solid Waste Management hauler permit is, under county code chapter 15, along with a county Local Business Tax Receipt and the insurance limits the application sets. A container standing on private ground usually needs nothing further; a container standing in a street or public right of way needs a right-of-way permit from the municipality or the county, and some cities approve the position before they issue it. Where the debris comes from a demolition, the demolition's own permit and asbestos track still govern, and asbestos waste is a separate stream to a separate destination.

Have this ready

  • Photographs of where the container would stand and of the route a truck would take to reach it
  • What the material actually is: concrete, timber, mixed fit-out, soil, or a combination, roughly in what proportion
  • Whether the position is on your own ground or in the street, because that is the difference between a delivery and a permit
  • Any site access restriction: overhead cables, a weight limit, a gate width, a time window the building imposes
  • Whether an asbestos survey has been done, since the answer decides whether anything in the load is a separate stream

None of it is required to get a visit booked. All of it makes the number firmer and the date earlier.

The full permit sequence, with sources, is on the permits and asbestos page.

Questions

What people ask about debris removal and disposal.

Do I need a permit to put a container on my own driveway?

Usually not. On private ground it is a placement decision between you and whoever owns the ground. The moment it stands in a street, a verge or any public right of way it needs a right-of-way permit from the municipality or the county, and some cities want the position approved before they will issue one.

How do I know a hauler is permitted?

Look at the side of the container and the truck door. Miami-Dade County Code chapter 15 requires the hauler's name, the Department of Solid Waste Management permit number, the vehicle number, the Local Business Tax Receipt number and the vehicle tare weight to be permanently marked there in letters of at least two inches. If that is not on it, ask why before it is loaded.

Is it cheaper to separate the debris or to send one mixed load?

Separating is almost always cheaper on a demolition, because a transfer station charges more to sort a mixed load than it costs to keep the streams apart while loading. The exception is a small job where the whole thing fits in one container and the sorting would cost more labour than it saves at the gate.

Container or truck?

Container where the job produces steadily and there is somewhere to stand one. Truck where there is nowhere to stand one, where the right of way cannot be occupied, or where the volume is big enough that waiting for a swap would be the slow part. On a teardown it is usually both: containers for the strip-out, trucks for the structure.

Does this work in Broward and Palm Beach too?

The counties north of here run their own hauling rules and we have not documented them, so nothing written here should be read as describing them. Ask and we will tell you what applies at your address rather than assume Miami-Dade's answer travels.

Usually bundled with