Month: March 2018

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Getting Rid of Your Unwanted Junk is Simple as 1-2-3

Posted on | by chad

Do you want to know the #1 reason why the average person accumulates so much junk in their home? It’s because they just don’t know how to get rid of it! They know they can’t leave worn-out furniture or broken appliances out on the street for the garbage man to pick up. And they probably don’t have access to a giant truck to haul all of the junk off to the dump themselves. If they want to be environmentally friendly, well, how exactly do you go about recycling an old fridge? The main reason why junk and unwanted items build up is simply because it’s easier to put them in the garage or basement to be dealt with later.

Back when our founder, Collin Wheeler, worked for a DC moving company, he heard this story again and again. It inspired him to start 123JUNK, a company that gives you a stress-free and environmentally responsible way to get rid of your clutter and junk. It’s simple, you call us to book an appointment and we will show up to haul away whatever you want. And we don’t mean directly to the dump! It’s our aim to be as eco-friendly as possible so we don’t just trash your stuff, we recycle it! In fact, we recycle over 50% of the items we remove. And if you have some old appliances that still work, we can donate them to charities for you, giving them a new home while getting them out of yours.

Here is exactly what you can expect when you give us a call. We will show up at your place at a time that works for you, we even offer same-day and weekend service. We will remove everything that you want from your home or storage and put it into our big red truck. You will only be charged for volume of the junk removed, not by how long the job takes or how much it weighs. After we’re done, we sweep, tidy up, and strive to leave your home cleaner than when we got there. You don’t have to do a thing, you can just leave everything to us. And once we are finished, you will suddenly have wonderful, glorious SPACE in your life again!

If you’d like to schedule a time for us to stop by, you can give us a call at 1-800-364-5778. To learn more about 123JUNK and all of our services, you can visit our website or check us out on Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, YouTube, or Yelp. When you have us in your corner, then clearing away your junk is as simple as 1-2-3!

123JUNK 10

Cheap Junk Hauling

Posted on | by chad

As junk hauling professionals, we cringe every time we hear about somebody Googling “Cheap Junk Hauling.” But it’s a fact of life we have to live with. People are always looking for a bargain.

That got us to thinking about what is really meant by the word “cheap.”

  • Is the homeowner looking for the best price?
  • Does the office manager just want a down and dirty haul-away?
  • Is the client concerned about the professionalism of the team that comes out to their property?
  • Does the client care about the concern the team has for their property?

Does Cheap Mean Pricing?

123JUNK considers itself fairly priced in the junk hauling marketplace. We provide what we believe is very good value for the customer who wants a professional job done right. We also do more — the Donate – Recycle – Dispose model of which we’ve built our reputation is unmatched in our industry. We’re more than just a junk removal company.

One thing we offer is flat rate pricing. This includes all elements of our service, like labor, gas, mileage, and any disposal costs, so our customers receive just one bill. Even though another company might offer a lower estimate on the hauling job, when the extra fees are added in, the price may jump to a level higher than expected. We don’t like unexpected surprises and we believe in transparency

Does Cheap Mean Second-Rate?

As an established business with a carefully trained team, we pride ourselves on our professionalism. First, we outfit all of our employees head to toe with clothing that shows our logo. This creates camaraderie among all of us as teammates as well as adds a level of comfort and security to our customers’ experience. We also invest in high-quality trucks and equipment, and in keeping them clean. Even though our business can be dirty, there is no reason for either our workers or our trucks to appear so.

We never, ever want to offer a second-rate or inferior experience to our customers. Each customer receives the same level of service and polite interaction, no matter what size their hauling job is. For example, when you call into 123JUNK our phones are answered by a living person, not a machine. From that first contact on, we want you to know that you are important to us. You can read more about our goal of satisfying customers in this previous blog post.

Does Cheap Mean Stingy?

Every one of our employees will bend over backwards to make sure our customers have a top-notch experience. We don’t cut corners in our service or our services. For hauling jobs like appliance or office equipment removal, we take the time to cover floors and protect doorways, furniture and corners from scuffs or damage. We also come back in to sweep-clean the area, or rake up any remaining debris from a yard waste removal.

For working with delicate situations such as hoarding, divorce or death cleanouts, our employees are trained in how to deal with customers who are undergoing a stressful situation. We’re not stingy with our time or our resources. Although we must stick to our daily scheduled appointments, it’s not unusual to find one of our haulers or telephone contacts, taking a few extra minutes to help a customer talk through the situation or helping to relocate a heavy piece of furniture from one room to another. Just that little extra can really make the difference in somebody’s life.

So What Does Cheap Junk Hauling Really Mean?

So what does a person really mean when they enter “Cheap Junk Hauling” into the search bar? Certainly they don’t want what seems like cheap pricing only to receive an inflated after-the-work bill, or have an unscrupulous-looking company show up at their doorstep. After all, you’re inviting these people into your private spaces, whether it is your home or office. And you surely don’t want second-rate service or miserly interactions.

What you really want when you say “Cheap Junk Hauling” is great service at an affordable price. And that is just what 123JUNK offers.

Give us a chance and let us bid on your next home or office junk hauling project in Northern Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. Contact us today.

Garbage in middle ages

A Brief History of Garbage

Posted on | by chad

What did cavemen do with their garbage? That’s probably not a question you ask yourself too often. But what people do with their trash is a Number One Priority here at 123JUNK and it’s always on the tops of our minds.

So we had to ponder—where would the world be today if it weren’t for garbage men and junk haulers?

Well, first off, the world would probably be disgusting. Mounds of trash would be everywhere. And it would smell bad. Luckily, we’re here to call so this doesn’t happen.

Way back when, people didn’t own much, and what they did own, they kept for a long while, repurposing items as they became older. Anything unusable, they commonly burned or buried. These trash piles are treasure troves for archaeologists!

As cities grew and populations expanded, there were more people making trash and less land available. So it started to build up. This brought on vermin and disease. Remember the Black Plague of the 1300s? More than 25 million people died of this disease within five years. The pandemic urged sanitation changes, and resulted in the introduction in London of the first garbagemen. Their job? The weekly raking up of trash into carts for disposal outside the city limits.

In the later 1300s, the British Parliament stepped in and decided to implement regulations. First, they mandated that people must keep their front lawns clean. Second, they banned the dumping of waste into public waterways and ditches. In 1407, they passed a law stating that all waste must be kept indoors until the garbagemen arrived. So it piled up.

With the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s, the concept of trash bins became popular in Britain to deter scavengers. People were charged for them whether they used them or not. Britain then created giant “destructor” plants to burn trash and generate electricity from the steam.

The History of Garbage in America

Here in the United States, Benjamin Franklin started up a street cleaning service in 1757, and encouraged people to dig pits to bury their waste.

In the mid-1800s, residents of Washington, D.C. were freely dumping their garbage and slop into the streets where rats, cockroaches and other unpleasants created infestations—even in the White House. In 1894, residents of Alexandria, Virginia were so disgusted by the sight and smell of trash barges on the Potomac River coming from Washington, D.C. that they began sinking them upriver. In 1885, New York City developed the first system for garbage management.

Come the early 1900s, people were still dumping trash everywhere, filling up the waterways and byways, despite the installation of incinerators. It wasn’t until 1934 that the Supreme Court banned people from dumping municipal waste into the oceans, and by 1945, sanitary landfills were in full use. The very first sanitary landfill opened in Fresno, California in 1937 using trenching, compacting and the daily covering of waste with soil. Burning of waste was prohibited in most areas by the Clean Air Act of the 1950s.

Modern Trash Hauling

In 1965, the Solid Waste Disposal Act was established, and once President Nixon created the Environmental Protection Act in 1970, recycling and environmental concerns came to the forefront.

1991 marked the EPA standards for landfill groundwater protection, and the beginning of hazardous waste programs.

And probably the most significant date—at least in our lives—was the founding of 123JUNK in 2008. We’re celebrating 10 years!

In a report by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, every American produces 16.5 pounds of trash per day. And with more than 315 million people, that is more than 5 billion pounds of trash every day that needs to go somewhere. Two of the world’s largest landfills are right here in the United States: in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, with each processing more than 10,500 pound of trash daily!

Trash Hauling is Our Life at 123JUNK

We hope you enjoyed this brief journey through the history of trash. When you need your own junk and trash hauling, please think of 123JUNK. Your trash creates our history. Contact us today to schedule a pickup.

Old TV

Get Rid of Your Old TV

Posted on | by chad

We noticed recently that a local charity had posted a sign near the drop-off entrance that stated they no longer accepted CRT and DLP TVs or rear-projection flat screen HDTVs. But still there were several people wanting to donate their old television set, and they were subsequently turned away to haul their big, heavy TV back to the garage…or worse.

Rather than lug their old TV home again, you unfortunately find that people leave their outdated television nearby or dump it in a non-dump area. Those are not viable options. Storing it inside the home isn’t a pleasant thought either, but it happens. In fact, according to the Electronics Recycling Coordination Clearinghouse study, in 2015, Americans were storing about five billion pounds of CRT televisions in their homes.

123JUNK Wants Your Old TV

There’s a better solution. Instead of having to figure out how to get your oversized television into your family car, then gathering the family to help lift it. Call 123JUNK. We’re experts at hauling and lifting, and you never have to leave the couch…except to open the front door, of course, once we arrive.

What’s great about 123JUNK is that we have plenty of charitable partners who would love to have your old television. We partner with organizations who furnish refugees from other countries with household goods, and others who sell items to raise money to build housing for our local residents. To them, your old TV is like gold.

Old TVs Contain Toxic Materials

Another reason to call 123JUNK is to prevent your old TV from going into the landfill. Televisions, computer monitors and other electrical equipment contain non-recyclable and hazardous materials that can infect our soil and water with toxins. It is not unusual to find toxic substances including mercury, lead, beryllium and cadmium within an electronic device. Older CRT, or cathode ray tube, TVs contain lead in their glass tubes—up to six pounds of it. LED and Plasma TVs do not contain lead.

If your old TV is working, we’ll deliver it to whatever charity can use it. If not, we’ll take it to the recycling center where it can be stripped for re-usable materials and disposed of properly.

Watch 123JUNK Work

Don’t strain your back or your brain trying to figure out how to dispose of your old TV. Call 123JUNK. We serve families and businesses throughout Northern Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Call us today from the comfort of your favorite TV-watching chair and watch us get to work. We can be there as soon as tomorrow in many cases. Contact us today.

iIlegal dumping

Illegal Dumping Affects Us All

Posted on | by chad

 

Environmental damage can begin right in our own neighborhoods when people illegally dump items where they do not belong. As defined, illegal dumping it is the abandonment of waste in places other than authorized sites. It can include dumping of your trash into someone else’s container, abandoning items along a public roadway, or leaving them in an open field or vacant lot, or any other unacceptable location.

The effect can become cumulative. Where one item is dumped, often many items can begin to accumulate, either tossed by one individual or as the effect of others viewing this location as an easy dump site. When noticeable quantities of junk build up, the site becomes an open dump.

People toss all kinds of items with some of the more common dumped items including trash and garbage, old tires, mattresses, household appliances and furniture, yard waste, paints, fuels and chemicals. Other dumped items include construction materials left over from a residential job. Even leaving household goods on the curb with a “FREE” sign can be considered illegal dumping.

Serious Consequences of Illegal Dumping

Illegal dumping is a significant problem with serious consequences. Chemicals and pesticides that are dumped on the ground or into storm drains or waterways can pollute the soil or leach into the water or air supply, creating serious health hazards for plants, wildlife and humans alike.

Jurisdictions are taking the issue seriously as well since illegal dumping it is considered a criminal offense. In Manassas, Virginia, residents who are moving or remodeling and who leave large quantities of trash at the curb can face fines up to $2,500, jail time, and removal charges of up to $400.

 

In Washington, DC, the Police Department’s Environmental Crime Unit is hard at work cleaning up the district using illegal dumping signage and high-tech surveillance cameras to catch illegal dumpers in action. If caught, a perpetrator’s fines can run as high as $40,000.

Maryland, too, is cracking down on illegal dumping with signs on MD highways posting maximum fine amounts in highly-visible numbers. Illegal dumping here can result in a five-year prison sentence for a higher penalty or a 30-day jail sentence and a $1,500 fine for lesser charges.

Why Do People Illegally Dump?

The most common reason for illegal dumping is laziness. People can’t be bothered to take items to the landfill or appropriate dumping location. Or they falsely believe that if one person dumps their items in a location that it must be okay to add to the pile. Another reason is cost; fees are sometimes incurred with disposal.

123JUNK Provides Illegal Dumping Removal

The easiest and simplest way to remove items from your home or business is to call 123JUNK. Our professional team members can handle any size job, and know how and where to dispose of items both legally and responsibly. We even clean up illegal dumping sites when contracted for the job.

Don’t let illegal dumping or piles of unwanted items or garbage destroy our environment, or ruin your aesthetic views. If you are in Maryland, Northern Virginia or Washington DC, all it takes is a call to 123JUNK. Contact us today at 1-800-364-5778 to set your pickup appointment.

all hands meeting

The Impact of Uniforms

Posted on | by chad

 

At 123JUNK, we believe it is important to outfit all of our workers with branded clothing, and we go the full mile to ensure that everyone who works here gets full head-to-toe gear. We offer a variety of clothing options, including short-sleeved and long-sleeved polo shirts, pants, jackets, baseball caps, beanies for winter, and even boots to our employees.

Not every piece of our branded wear looks the same, however. There are different colors and styles available to allow our workers to still showcase their own personal styles while supporting the 123JUNK brand.

Why is outfitting our employees in uniform gear important?

Consistent Brand

Having a professionally-uniformed staff reinforces the 123JUNK brand through its colors, its logos and its commitment to company-set standards. The brand begins inside our company, and then translates our quality outside to our community partners, our charitable organizations, and of course, our clients, and everyone who sees our brand throughout the day.

Equal Playing Field

Since everyone at 123JUNK is dressed similarly, it blurs the lines between management and staff. Uniforms create an equality among workers and foster camaraderie and solidarity. It is not unusual for anyone who works at 123JUNK to jump in to help others at a moment’s notice. You might even find Collin working a truck alongside the latest hire.

Belonging

Our workers are proud to wear the 123JUNK brand because it creates a team spirit, a sense of belonging among everyone. It really feels like a family when you look around the room during a staff meeting and notice how everyone takes pride in wearing the brand.

Trust

With our work, we are invited into people’s homes and businesses, sometimes into the most intimate rooms of a client’s home. When our workers show up looking uniform, it helps to reinforce the fact that we are an established, quality company that can be trusted, and offers security to our clients. They can feel safe opening up their homes and lives to us.

Professionalism

We did a post previously on how it was important to us to present shiny clean trucks. It’s the same with our uniformed staff. It all goes back to our commitment to professionalism. We want to be the best junk hauling company, bar none. And, of course, we want to make a good impression.

Employee Benefit

Providing uniforms is a great employee benefit that saves money for our workers and wear and tear on their own clothing. They don’t have to worry about staining or damaging their own clothes, so they feel freer to “dig in” to a job.

We not only see the benefits of wearing branded uniforms within our company, we are sure these benefits reflect as well to the public. We are professionals within the junk hauling business, and it shows.

MD, VA, DC Junk Hauling

123JUNK is pleased to serve the homeowners and business owners in Maryland, Northern Virginia and Washington, DC. You might see our big red trucks or our uniformed workers throughout this region. If you need junk hauling, want to have large items like appliances, office equipment or mattresses removed, or have debris or yard waste that needs to go, contact 123JUNK today to set your pickup appointment.