How to dispose of your old carpet & cost guide
2. Pay your carpet fitter to dispose of it
Carpet fitters often remove and dispose of your old carpet for an additional fee. It’s important to check your fitter has a waste carriers license to legally dispose of waste. If they don’t, you will be responsible if the carpet ends up fly-tipped. Check their license on the Environment Agency’s website.
Expect to pay around £2.50-£3.50 per square metre for carpet removal by your fitter.
3. Carpet Retailer uplift & disposal service
Some carpet retailers offer a carpet removal and disposal service if you buy your new carpet from them. Below is a table comparing the services offered by the UK’s major carpet retailers. To give a general idea of the costs, we’ve included the price for an average-sized living room in the UK, which is 17 square metres.
| Carpet Retailer | Cost per m2 | Cost per room (17 m2) |
| Carpetright (in administration / Tapi) | £5 | £85 |
| John Lewis | £5.50* | £94 |
| SCS | £3 | £75 |
| Tapi | £4.50 | £76 |
*Guide price only
Need to uplift yourself? If you want to pull up the carpet yourself, check out our step-by-step guide to carpet uplift.
4. Take your carpet to the tip
If you’re a householder with a car, you can dispose of your carpet at the local tip (sometimes referred to as Household Waste Recycling Centres/ HWRCs, or Civic Amenity sites). Driving your carpet waste to the tip is usually the cheapest option because tips rarely charge for disposal.
However, it’s worth checking beforehand if your site refuses any waste. Some recycling centres are more picky with certain materials. That being said, the likelihood of being able to recycle your carpet at the tip is reasonably high. Use our Interactive Map of Council Tips to find your nearest site.
Top tip: put down sheets or some covering underneath the carpets so you won’t be left cleaning up carpet fluff for days!
5. Use the council bulky waste collection service
If you don’t have transport to get to the tip, check whether your council will collect it via their bulky waste collection service. Many don’t take carpet because it’s classified as home improvement waste which is excluded from the service, but some do.
Although relatively cheap, wait times for the council service will be much longer than hiring a private waste collector and they can’t come into your property to remove it. This could be a problem if you also need the carpet uplifting or can’t get it outside yourself.
Check your council website for details on prices and how to book a collection. Prices vary up and down the country, with certain councils strictly excluding certain types of waste.
If you’re interested – you could read our full breakdown of Council Large Item Collection Prices.
6. Hire a skip
Do you have lots of carpet to get rid of? Hiring a skip is only really worth the price when you have enough waste to fill it. For example, if you’re doing a big renovation that means all the carpet or flooring is coming out.
Costs vary depending on where you live, the size of the skip and whether or not you need a skip permit too. For full details on hiring a skip, see our Skip Hire Guide.
7. Use a Hippo bag
Smaller than a skip, you can also dispose of carpet with a hippo bag, sometimes referred to as skip bags. See our Hippo Bag Guide here.
8. Man & Van Waste Carrier
One of the most popular ways to get rid of your carpet waste is to pay a licensed man & van waste collector. They can remove waste from anywhere on the property and can often collect on the same day.
Important to remember is that you have a ‘Duty of Care’ as a householder to make sure your carpet isn’t fly tipped. This is very common and a real crisis not just for councils but for the environment too. You can receive a big fine if any fly tipped waste is traced back to you, so always check your waste carrier is registered with the Environment Agency.
