FAQs
Heads up! We’re no longer providing cleaning services for our bins so many of these FAQs are outdated.
Product
How much does your service cost?
Pricing depends on how many bins or air fresheners you need, how frequently you need them cleaned or serviced, and where your venue is in relation to other venues that we service. If you’re just after a quote head to our order form and we’ll get back to you ASAP.
What am I paying for?
You’re paying for Bloody Good Bins at your venue and the service of having them cleaned and maintained by us on a regular basis.
What areas do you operate in?
We currently only operate around inner Melbourne (a radius of about 8km from the CBD). If you’re outside of this zone, we still want to hear from you! Get in touch here and we’ll drop you a line as soon as we’re up and running in your area.
How do I order and pay for some Bloody Good Bins?
Fill out our order form here and we’ll email or call you back ASAP with a confirmation or any extra questions we need to ask. Once we’ve confirmed your details, we’ll arrange a drop-off time and send you an invoice to be paid by direct bank transfer. We typically do annual contracts, so we’ll send you a new invoice every 12 months.
Do you offer other hygiene services (e.g. air fresheners, soaps, dryers)?
Yep! In addition to period bins, we also do automatic air fresheners — the type that are mounted on a wall and spray at a regular intervals. We currently don’t do other services like hand soaps, paper towels or dryers.
Cleaning
Who cleans the bins?
We do! We have an amazing team of mixed-gender cleaners.
Where does the waste go?
Unfortunately, all of the waste currently goes to landfill. This is mainly because tampons, pads and other period care products commonly contain plastic which can’t be easily composted or broken down. That said, we’re not satisfied with this, and we’ll be exploring ways to divert this waste from landfill as we grow.
How often are the bins cleaned?
For most customers, we clean their bins every 4 weeks. However, if your bathroom is particularly busy (or quiet), let us know and we can work out a special arrangement with custom pricing.
Where are the bins cleaned?
We do our cleaning in the bathroom stall. Someone from our team will bring all of the necessary cleaning equipment and will close the door while they’re cleaning. Each bin takes less than 5 minutes to clean, and once the cleaner is done they’ll take the waste with them.
What times of the day do you clean the bins?
When you place an order we’ll ask you to let us know what your venue’s opening hours are. From this, we’ll find a time to work your venue into our cleaning schedule. If you have specific constraints around timing, let us know and we’ll work something out. As we grow and take on more customers, we might need to clean your bins at different times of the week. Don’t worry, we’ll never leave your bins uncleaned for longer than the cleaning frequency we’ve agreed to.
Impact
How do Bloody Good Bins fight period stigma?
We use euphemism-free language and eye-catching designs to challenge the stereotype that periods shouldn’t be talked about. We think when companies and individuals tiptoe around periods with sanitised messaging and euphemisms, it conditions us to think menstruation is something that cannot and should not be talked about openly. This diminishes our ability to identify, address or diagnose menstrual health related issues, which is ultimately harmful and restrictive for people who menstruate.
Where does the money go?
We donate 50% of our profits to charities that empower women and girls. In the past, these have included Living Goods who train female healthcare workers in Uganda and Kenya, Fistula Foundation who fund fistula repair surgeries all over Africa and Asia, and Strongminds who train former sufferers of depression in Africa to become counsellors.
Why do you donate to charities overseas that aren’t necessarily working on menstrual health or period poverty?
When it comes to donations, our goal is to empower women, girls, and gender diverse individuals. Period. There are a million different ways to do this, so we want to be evidence-driven and target the charities that are most effective at achieving this goal. There’s strong evidence that charitable donations have a bigger impact when directed to the poorest parts of the world. In other words, your money goes further overseas. Through our research so far, the most effective charities at achieving our mission haven’t necessarily had much to do with menstrual health, but that doesn’t mean this won’t change in future.
How environmentally sustainable are you guys?
We offset 110% of our vehicle transport emissions by giving money to Greenfleet to plant native forests on our behalf. We also use bin liners made of 80% recycled plastic, and our long term plan is to manufacture our own bins without using any virgin plastics. You can read more about our approach to sustainability here.