Should landscaper pay for rubbish disposal?

For the pallets and hardcore- advertise them on nextdoor, olio, freecycle and/or facebook market place for free. Someone might take them. If not, then look at skip hire. Some companies also delivery/collect tonne bags rather than metal type skips. I doubt they'd be cheaper, but if space is limited, it might be an option.

Also in London and have hired skips several times. You definitely don’t pay per half hour or even day. You pay per skip, however long you have it.

I understand skips are £300/half hour to hire Huh! Who on earth said this to you???

We're 4yrs in renovating a derelict house. We've hired many skips and its never been rent by the hour! Always a set price- generally for a week. If you are only putting in 1 item such as hard core, and not a mix of various things/rubbish, then we've always had a discount because they don't need to sort at the other end. Ring a few local companies to get ideas of prices.

Filling skips is pretty good exercise

This is the local authorities fault really OP. They have made it impossible for small traders / jobbing builders to dispose of waste. It’s insane that we have to pay for literally everything on top now. He should have included a skip in your quote / made clear it was excluded but £5k to build a wall and patio isn’t exactly mega money. My gardener doesn’t take my green waste away. Cheapest might be to get a grab lorry to come and pick it up for you if they are able to access and they will literally grab it off the floor with the grabbers.

You could also cost up Hippo bags which you can fill and have collected

clearabee is very easy to use - you can get a free quote online right now. You might need a pic of the rubbish. We paid £150 and a man loaded it up in his van in an hour and all gone to a proper disposal site

Never give a contractor the figure you have to spend. If you say £5k the quote is never going to come in under that, even if it would cost £3k.

What sort of waste is it? This will determine how you could get rid of it. There's usually someone locally that could use rubble as hardcore or to put in the bottom of a raised bed. If there's metal is there a local tat man who would take it off your hands.

Don't feel so daft OP, plenty of people have work done without contracts that detail every brick and tile. And most tradespeople do take the rubbish away. Most of the time it all works out fine but on the rare occasion without a contract you get caught out. Unlucky.

Order a skip, chuck the lot in and then have a large G&T in your lovely new garden under the stars xxx

According to Google (which might be wrong of course):

Yes, in the UK, the tradesperson building your patio is legally responsible for removing and properly disposing of all the waste they create, as it's considered business waste, not yours. They have a "duty of care" under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 to ensure it's handled by a licensed carrier and not fly-tipped, with the cost typically included in their quote.

A commercial contract for this sort of work would include “taking all arisings” & “making good”, that is, the removal of rubbish & leaving the site as you found it. There are specific clauses addressing this.
Always have a contract. I think you are stuck.

Always ask for any building quote to include removal and diaposal of any rubbish. Lesson learnt.

I think you’ll have to chalk it up to a lesson learned.

Skips are usually hired for a two week period, my local company is usually happy to extend if needed.

Or, do you have a local builders merchant/aggregates supplier. My local one does a “muck away” service. Large lorry with a grabber that took away all the concrete I’d had dug up from the garden. Think it cost around £140 for them to take it away - they then just break it up to be sold on as hardcore.

I was just about to suggest this too. List it on FB Marketplace - I've done this successfully several times. Everyone is a winner: you get rid of your waste, somebody else gets some free hardcore for their job, and you've recycled.

I agree that you need to chalk this up to experience. Most trades will say if the quote includes removal of waste. If there is no mention, assume it doesn't/ask for clarification. As there was no mention, you didn't ask, and you were needing to keep the price lower than perhaps it would normally cost, it is a fair assumption that this is something that's been pruned to stay within your budget.
FWIW I have a trade and don't include removal of waste, but I also state this very clearly at the time of quoting to avoid exactly this situation. It's much better and avoids any bad feeling (on either side!) when everyone is clear what the transaction involves. I also try to give the customer an idea of how much waste will be generated so they can plan, but my jobs rarely produce even 1/4 skip's worth. Most often it's just a rubble sack or two. I don't have space to store up enough bags to make a commercial trip to the tip worthwhile, which is why I don't remove it as a service. I also can't be bothered with the extra faff of a waste carriage licence.

Yes, and IME also if your bin is weirdly heavy week on week!

It's a fairly obscure part of the Waste Regs but it is because it has been generated as part of a paid job. Same as according to the letter of the law your gardener can't put clippings from your garden in your garden rubbish bin.

In reality in both cases LA's are normally fairly relaxed if you dump this type of waste once as it could be DIY. It's when people start turning up on a monthly basis claiming they have redone their own personal kitchen/bathroom yet again and no of course they weren't working for a client that they start asking alot of questions.

It doesn't work like that.

More fool you for not getting a contract. You’re lucky he didn’t down tools halfway through building the patio and saying that it will be another £5k to finish. What would you have done then?

If you have space for the skip, I would go down that path. It won’t be £300 for 30 mins- as others say it will be a one off fee (cost depends on how big the skip is but in the region of £300) and you can usually have it for up to a week. Filling a skip is deeply satisfying and if you are not in a rush ie have all week then you can take it slowly and might even enjoy it. If you’re paying £5k for the work then the extra £300 or so is not wildly over budget. You’ll love having a newly-modelled garden so once you wave goodbye to the skip you will hopefully be feeling much better about the whole experience…

Id give him £4k with rest on completion.

This sort of thing should have been agreed in advance and included in the contract and price.

it’s not so you are stuck for it

Surely it's only commercial waste for the builder, for the home owner their old patio is household waste.

I think in this case you are. I would expect the waste disposal to be a separate scope item to the building work. When tescos drop off your online shoppng they don't empty the bins on the way back.

If it’s hardcore you might be able to advertise it as free to collect!