How to Save on Your Waste and Recycling Disposal Expenses

Imagine knowing that you can put your waste management on the back burner. Imagine knowing that your current and future rates will always be fair, and that you have recourse when waste issues arise. Imagine knowing that you have a waste ally on your side - a waste industry expert who will look out for your interests, your staff, and your bottom line.  

This can be your reality. With a waste audit, you can find the savings you need and the peace of mind you want. 

Like 90% of companies nationwide, you're likely overspending because of your hidden waste problems - by 10-35% every month. 

Here you’ll learn everything you need to know about how you're overspending and how to start saving. 

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How You’re Overspending On Waste and Recycling Removal Services

You’re likely overspending by not doing one or more of the following best practices:

1. Eliminating price hikes

2. Evaluating service levels and equipment

3. Knowing market rates

4. Eliminating waste or garbage vendor invoice fees

5. Eradicating the auto-renewal clause

6. Having a waste ally 

Any one of these issues can cause thousands of dollars in overspending over the term of your waste hauler contracts. Below, we’ll look at each of these issues in detail.

You’re robbing yourself by not eradicating or limiting price spikes on your invoices.

Most haulers will not enter an agreement unless they are making at least a 15% profit, and their profit margins will almost always increase every year. (Some haulers make as much as 100% or more in profit!) The main way they’re able to do this is by hiking their rates every six to twelve months.

Haulers don’t usually give notice prior to hikes, the additional charges just happen. And most people don’t fight them because either they can’t, or they don’t notice them. Or, they do notice and think it’s normal. 

We’ve seen haulers raise prices as much as four times a year at a 5-10% increase. (Just recently, we actually had a vendor try to increase rates 900%!)

These incremental increases add up. Say you’ve employed a hauler for four years. You started paying them $1,000 a month. Four years later, you could be paying as much $1,500 a month or more! That’s a 50% increase - at just one property. Think about how much you’ll be paying a year from now, or two, or ten.

Case Study: Republic Client in April 2020

For most companies, a 50% increase over 4 years may actually be the best case scenario.

Let us show you what we mean. Take a look at the picture below. This is a screenshot we took in April of 2020 from Republic’s website. Notice what has happened in the past two years?

They started paying $275.42 for service. Now they’re paying almost $300 more - $573.15. That’s a 200% increase at a single location! If this increase occurred in a portfolio of many locations, this client would in effect be overpaying by thousands - something they could have prevented by just a few additional lines on their contract.

How To Tell If Your Hauler Contract Prohibits Price Spikes

Not sure if your contract limits these hikes? Ask your accounting team to log on to your hauler portal and review the invoices from the past year. Are there noticeable increases?

Another way to know is by looking on your waste contract. Look at the “comments” or “notes” portion of the contract on the first or second page.

If you don’t see language to this effect, you garbage hauler will almost certainly increase your rates at will - and you won’t be able to do anything about it.

Price hikes are just one of several contract problems. Read more about these issues and their solutions here.

Your hauler is paid to pick up your trash, not to find cost-cutting waste solutions. As a result, in the 18 years we’ve been in business we’ve seen inaccurate service levels occur in almost every state - regardless of which waste vendor was employed.

What exactly do we mean by inaccurate service levels? We mean that your real waste disposal needs have no correlation with what you’re paying for.

You may be paying for 5 pick-ups a week when you only actually need 2. Or, alternatively, your dumpsters are too big.

How would we know the difference? Let’s walk through an example that shows the level of detail we frequently use to maximize savings.

Detailed Questions Expose Your Waste Disposal Problems

Suppose you have a location in Raleigh, NC with two-6 yard dumpsters that is serviced three times a week by Waste Management. We would find out:

• How full those containers are when serviced

• The equipment history for the site

• Pricing options for larger dumpsters

• Pricing options for less frequent service

• Whether the materials in these containers can be recycled

• Whether the hauler frequently misses pick ups

• If there is a history of overage fees

At this point, it’s likely we would find that it would be more cost-effective to pay for larger dumpsters that get serviced fewer times per week. After showing you the savings you would accrue over time as a result of this change, we would oversee a smooth transition. A typical client in this scenario could save as much $3000 over the lifetime of their waste hauler contract.

We know the calibrated questions required to evaluate your waste streams whether it’s:

• analyzing the seasonal needs of hotel chains

• exploring resale opportunities for manufacturing by-products

• evaluating multi-family waste usage trends

We bring this level of detail to every industry we work with. We know you can’t afford not to make your service and equipment efficient.

You’ll only overpay on service levels when they’re ineffective. Are yours?

Haulers are not going to show you how a compactor could save you $80,000 in the next five years.

They’re not going to tell you that you don’t actually need service 5 times a week. They’re not going to tell you that getting a cardboard baler can help you save money by adding a revenue stream. They’re not going to disclose that you can reduce your costs by requesting that each of your five dumpsters at a certain location get picked up at a different frequency. 

We will.

Haulers know you’re not likely to consult with the restaurant across the street when you set up your service contract. They know that you’re not going ask that restaurant what their disposal rate is, or how often they get price spikes. They also know that you don’t know what other area haulers are charging, and so you can’t know if they’re overcharging you.

When was the last time any of your vendor volunteered this kind of information?

This is exactly what allows price gouging to happen.

If you’re in the dark about hauler pricing, how can you tell what is fair?

We know what fair pricing is, and we know how to find it.

We just worked with a client in Roanoke, Virginia that was charged almost $235 a month for one 8-yard dumpster by Republic Services. We found another area hauler that charged $120 a month for the same service - which amounted to a $4140 in savings over the 3-year term of that contract.

Knowing market prices pays.

We use our expert market knowledge to find savings for each and every one of our clients. They never have to worry about committing the time and effort to price-checking and making endless calls to vendors. We take all that on for you.

We know how to make airtight contracts, how to prevent price spikes, and how to reduce fees. These are things we do for our clients every day, in almost every industry - and it’s what we can do for you, too. 

Your hauler would rather keep you in the dark about negotiable fees. With our assistance, the majority of our clients pay a reduced fuel fee and administrative fee on their contract.

If your contract prohibits fees, you don’t have to pay them.

Here are two of the most common fees. You can read more about fees here.

Container Service Plan: This is a fee that was automatically added to most Waste Management accounts a few years ago. Enrollment in this plan allows you to replace your container at will.

Fuel/environmental fee: Almost everyone gets this charge on their invoice. Basically, the hauler is charging you for the gas it takes to get to your site and deliver your trash to the dump. But here’s the thing - they charge everyone on their route a fuel fee. They are more than recouping the cost of gas. And with no limits in place on your agreement, your fuel and environment fees are likely to skyrocket at will.

And those fuel charges add up. The location that got the invoice above is being charged almost $60 a month, about $720 a year. Supposing this is a three year contract this location could save $2160 over the term of their contract, but they’re not.

How many of these fees are you paying? (Rhonda C. of Presbyterian Homes was paying many of the fees below, and she didn’t have to!) 

The fees you pay are dictated by the soundness of your contract. If you have a great contract, these fees will be limited or exempt, resulting in thousands of dollars saved over the life of the service agreement.

If you have a bad contract, you’ll pay these fees in addition to your price spikes, overages, and extra trip fees.

Learn more about your hidden contract problems here.

Most haulers are betting on the fact that you’re not going to remember when your contract expires - typically three or five years from the day you sign it. They know that if you are aware of this date you may choose to go with a different hauler or change your contract. So most contracts have what is called an automatic renewal clause.

It means that unless someone intervenes, your contract will automatically renew without notice and without your input. Given the prevalence of price spikes and fees, it’s likely you’ll find yourself in a situation where you’re paying too much for inadequate service. Again.

The language of this clause often looks like this:

Waste needs often change over time, and waste service levels may need adjusting. When we cancel the auto-renewal clauses for our clients, it allows us the opportunity to find better pricing with another hauler or to renegotiate new contracts with your current hauler. Both options can contribute to thousands of dollars in savings over time. 

Suppose we stop a client’s auto renewal clause and are able to find $1000 in savings each month by renegotiating their contract with better rates and capped price increases. Over the three year life of the contract, the client will save over $35,000. All because we are able to edit the contract to stop the auto-renewal, which gave us the time we needed to find better pricing.

You deserve the chance to get the best rates you can on your waste disposal. Don’t ignore the importance of this clause.  

Simply put: without professional oversight of your waste management, you’ll likely overspend. But you don’t have to. Our clients have found reliable solutions and consistent savings after partnering with us, and you can too.

Download our free PDF “Four Reasons You Need a Waste Ally” here.

Up until a few months ago, Anita Huffman of TWE Nonwovens was overspending by almost $150,000 every year on her waste spend. She told us, “During your audit, you uncovered more than $12,000 in monthly savings opportunities. Your exhaustive process and your team’s dedication to our success has permanently changed our approach to waste management.”

Tad Dolbier of Tar Heel Capital was similarly impressed.  As the president of 75 Wendy’s restaurants, Tar Heel wanted to control their waste and recycling expenses.   

Tad had already tried to reign in spending but on his own he was still sitting on savings. He just didn’t have the market knowledge he needed to find all the opportunities, so he put our expertise to use. 

In the first month after implementing our recommendations, he saw gross savings of $6,800. He wrote us: “When you came back to me with $6800 each month in savings, as well as significant refunds from over billing, I was truly impressed and grateful!”

We don’t just find savings in manufacturing and food industries. We’ve also had huge success with multi-family housing. 

Scott Alderman of Landura Management (multi-family management), got in touch and wanted us to evaluate his waste spend. There were a lot of variables: 4,500 units in 9 states. They had different waste vendors and lots of bad contracts. The logistics were complicated. 

But even though these variables were a challenge, our approach remained the same. We looked for savings opportunities, and we found them. 

After they were implemented, Scott was able to report back to us: “The recommendations you implemented resulted in these expenses being reduce by 25%.” His gross savings? $116,000 each year.

Our process works for almost every company in every industry nationwide. We’ve found millions of dollars in savings - how much are you sitting on?

Our Ongoing Services Protect Your Waste Savings

But on top of the the savings from the audit itself, we remain committed to protecting your savings. We do this three ways:

• Supporting service requests

• Auditing every waste invoice

• Replacing old contracts

What would be the point of securing new rates and bringing on new vendors if your fees kept climbing? Or if your new service provider became a nightmare?

We supply these ongoing services so that your savings are protected - and so that you can your staff can have peace of mind about your waste management.

Your Service Issues Need Our Expertise

Ever tried to get in touch with a hauler during an emergency? It can be a nightmare. After your initial audit is done, we take on every hauler issue, relieving your overworked staff.

Our personnel specialize in the waste industry. We know what questions to ask, how to get quick resolutions, and who to talk to. We know how to enforce signed contracts, and the measures to take when a hauler is impossible to get a hold of, or are downright uncooperative.

As a result, our clients get credits when pick-ups are missed, or when damage is done to a property. They get reimbursed when there is no proof of the overage or contamination that occurs on an invoice. Our clients have a waste ally in us.

Your Waste Invoices Need Our Oversight

Waste hauler invoices are incorrect 10% of the time. Are you catching those mistakes?

About a year ago, one of our clients got an unwelcome surprise. Upon receipt of their monthly hauler invoice, they found that their service rates had increased by 900%!

Take a look at the actual invoice below:

This client called their vendor, who was adamant that it was a legitimate increase. Then they reached out to us, and our WCI Senior Analyst (SA) jumped in immediately. 

After several rounds of calls, the analyst was finally able to speak to someone at this particular hauler’s office who could help. And - surprise, surprise - this person finally agreed that the increase was indeed due to an internal error. 

But the issue wasn’t all cleared up.

The next month’s invoice came out and was not quite as high, but it was still way off. It wasn’t until the following month’s invoice came out - 2 months after the $20K bill - that the pricing was finally corrected. 

What would they have done if they hadn’t called us? Gone back and forth with their service provider for hours and days and weeks to try to reach a resolution? Paid the invoice? Filed a lawsuit?

But because they had a waste ally, they were able to turn the entire issue over to us. As a result, they didn’t have to pay the inaccurate invoices or even accept any sort of rate increase.

This is an extreme example of something that actually happens pretty frequently. We find errors on client bills about 10% of the time. And when we do, we do exactly what we did here - we make sure the provider corrects the invoice or provides the appropriate credits. 

What you don’t know is costing you.

You’re likely being charged at rates that are too high because your contract ensures that your rates will steadily increase, unchecked. You have equipment on site that you don’t need because your haulers don’t care that your dumpsters are half full when they’re serviced. You’re paying too much for your service, because you only need pick-ups three times a week instead of five.

And you’re not catching the mistakes on your haulers invoices.

How to Reduce Waste Expenses - Permanently

Some of you may be thinking, “I see why it’s a good idea to have an independent, thorough review. But how exactly do you all do that?”

Let’s walk through:

1. Our thorough audit process

2. Our pricing

3. Our partnership process

We exist to take waste issues off of your plate, not add to them. So every aspect of our client relations from start to finish is tailored to give you peace of mind.

1. WCI’s Thorough Waste Reduction Audits are Easy and Convenient

Our audits are effective because they’re thorough, and our waste experts are the ones doing them.

After you’ve signed on, one of our waste experts will meet with you about the specifics of your account. They’ll ask you about any unique issues or concerns, and give you a general timeline of completion.

How do your waste experts find savings?

Our in-house waste experts, called senior analysts - have decades of waste experience.

They know all about under-performing waste vendors. They can find the holes in your contract because they’ve seen the very worst of the worst. And they know how to adapt our proven process to fit your industry, your locations, and your needs. 

Right off the bat, our analysts will know if you’re overpaying for a dumpster based on its monthly rate, or if you may need to decrease frequency of pick-ups at a certain location.

But other information is not nearly so straightforward.

We know where and how to find the root issue of your waste problems:

• We look for unexplained price hikes, and we look at usage trends.

• We also look at your service agreements.

• We’ll note contract expiration dates.

• We’ll check to see if ancillary fees are limited or exempt.

• We’ll also look for language that prohibits auto-renewals, and limits price increases to a certain percentage. 

Then, we’ll find other pricing options. We keep records of nationwide haulers, and we know equitable rates when we see them. Some of our clients profit from switching waste haulers, but for others, we renegotiate existing contracts for better rates. Our post-audit analysis will make it clear which option is more financially sound for you.

We make sure you don’t leave any savings opportunities on the table - which is why we have a success rate of over 90%. Read more about how our clients feel about their new found savings.

How long does a waste audit take?

Our audits take 60-90 days. This length of time allows us to be extraordinarily thorough as we review every possible aspect of your waste and recycling streams.

Will you need to come on-site?

The vast majority of our audits are remote. We use google maps and google earth to look at the location of dumpsters on your property.

In addition, we typically call to each site’s manager to verify service levels and equipment on site. We’ll ask questions about seasonal variance and what your real waste and recycling needs are at a particular site. We often find that site managers can give a level of detail that open up other avenues of savings. 

What documents do you need for the audit?

We ask for pertinent documents that will show us your current waste management process. These include:

• A current service agreement for every location. Your contracts tell us everything we need to know about your terms, pricing, and auto-renewal clauses.

• Historic invoices. These show us the hauler’s record of service levels, equipment, rates, and fees. 

• Hauler website log-on information. Not all clients track their invoices online, but many do. This information allows us to access current and future invoices so that we can assess and monitor them.

 It takes most companies just a few hours to retrieve and send us the necessary information.

These documents are the foundation of what we do. They let us see what your real waste needs are and show us your savings possibilities.

Revealing Your Savings Solutions

After we have completed our analysis, we show you the steps we’ll take to make an impact on your bottom line and the amount you’ll save over time at each location.

Then we discuss implementation timelines. On rare occasions, there are valid reasons for not implementing certain savings. Maybe a location is about to be sold, or perhaps construction makes immediate implementation impossible. We want to find the solutions that are right for you, so we amend as necessary. 

For many of our clients, we are able to renegotiate waste contracts at better pricing. So no vendor switchout is necessary.

But for others, they save by finding less expensive vendors. Where there are service changes, we coordinate with your staff to ensure a smooth transition. We manage contract cancellations and arbitrate any resulting push back we get from current haulers. When a significant issue arises we’ll bring it to your attention. But for the most part we are able to do what we do with minimal inconvenience to you and your staff. 

After all cost-cutting solutions have been put into place, we provide a monthly savings report. It shows the savings status at every location we’ve reviewed.

It looks like this:

This summary shows the gross savings, and our share in the savings. It allows you to see exactly what you’re being charged for every location in your portfolio, and the savings rate at each.

Protecting Your Savings

After your savings are in place, we offer three critical on-going services:

1. Billing Audits

2. Pricing Reviews

3. Service Issue Resolution

It’s not enough for us to cut your waste spend by 10-35%. We ensure that those savings are protected going forward. We take these measures to ensure that you always receive the very best pricing and service.

Billing Audits

We’ve seen it in almost every state, in every industry, and with utility, telecom, and waste disposal services providers. Vendors make billing mistakes about 10% of the time - and that adds up fast! 

We recently worked with a client who had about a dozen hotels in the midwest. They had recently signed a new contract that prohibited regulatory fees on their waste disposal expenses. They weren’t ever supposed to be charged this fee. But guess what? They were. It happened over and over again on their invoices for months. And they had no idea they were overpaying. 

We documented the exact amount of overcharges and the months they occurred, then presented it to the vendor. They couldn’t deny the charges or what the contract stipulated. So they agreed to provide several hundred dollars in credits. 

This client would still be overpaying if they hadn’t had a waste ally. These charges could have gone on for several more years, and no one would have been the wiser. But because we scrutinize every one of your invoices, we ensure you only pay what is fair.

We’re proud to help you stop overspending - and we’re invested in making sure you don’t ever overspend again.  

Our process has served hundreds of companies nationwide. And it can absolutely work for you. Companies in every industry are benefiting from our services - why not join them?

Sign up for a quick, informal consult and take the first step to finding savings.

Billing Discrepancy Resolution Will Take Too Much of Your Time

You and your staff often simply don’t have the time to devote to monitoring your invoice. It requires an eye for detail, and a familiarity with your contract stipulations and invoice history. 

And even when errors or mistakes are found, it often takes even more time to rectify the situation. One of our client’s recent waste invoices increased by 900% in one month, and it took months - months! - to resolve.

Put our expertise to use on billing issues - you and your staff have better ways to spend your time.

Waste Contract Pricing Reviews

We track every contract expiration date at every location in your portfolio. Several months prior to expiration, we look for better pricing options for you. We get in touch with other haulers and get bids for the services needed at your locations. If we find better pricing, we negotiate a new contract with ideal terms and coordinate the transition of service with the site lead or manager.

This gives us the opportunity to ensure:

1. That you’re paying fair rates for your region and market.

2. That you can take advantage of better pricing if it becomes available.

We are committed to helping you maximize every savings opportunity available to you. Contract tracking allows us to find and take additional cost-cutting measures to save you even more.

Preventing Waste Service Problems

Preventing service issues starts with your contract. If your contract doesn’t have language prohibiting on-going issues, you are leaving yourself open to persistent hauler issues.

You won’t have much recourse when your hauler strews garbage all across your parking lot for the third time this month. You may convince him to come back and clean up his or her mess, but they don’t have much incentive to stop doing it. This is why every one of our contracts includes a clause that gives you recourse for on-going service issues.

Then, when you hauler refuses to give billing credits or make amends for damaged company property, we can terminate service and find you a more reliable waste hauler. It protects you from paying for service that is terrible, and it ensures your haulers have accountability for the quality of their service.

Solving Waste Service Problems

Your time shouldn’t be infringed on by poor service issues. You shouldn’t have to be distracted by waste issues - small or large.  

After our audit is complete, we take on all resolution of future service problems. This means when your hauler misses a pick-up, you have someone who will obtain a billing credit on your behalf. It means when they damage the compactor during service that you’ll have recourse.

2. Our Performance-Based Pricing

As you may have noticed from the savings summary above, we share in the savings we find at a rate of 50%. You can read in detail about our pricing here.

Performance-based pricing means we share in the quantifiable cost reductions that our clients realize upon execution of our recommendations. You only pay us out of the savings we find for you, so our services are not an added expense.

That means if we find you $20,000 in savings a year, you’ll keep $10,000 and we will be compensated $10,000. 

This model makes us better partners and it provides you with better services - we have a huge incentive to produce results.

And on the rare occasion we find no savings, you don’t owe us a dime. When this happens, you get a free audit and the assurance that you’re managing your waste costs efficiently. Why pay for a service you don’t benefit from?

In other words, our services are guaranteed to be cash-flow positive. This means you only pay us when we find savings. If we don’t find any savings whatsoever on your account, you don’t pay us a dime. You will only pay us when we find and implement precise solutions for you. 

We take on all the risk to find you savings. You, on the other hand, take on zero risk to see if you are one of the 90% of companies nationwide who can stand to cut their waste expenses by 10-35%. Your odds are better than good that you’ll save - in fact, they’re great.

Click on the Client Testimonial presentation below to learn more about how much our clients have saved. (You can download this presentation here.)

3. Partnering with a Waste Reduction Expert

You deserve to know exactly what is and isn’t working in your waste disposal process. You deserve to know whether your waste streams are operating at maximum efficiency. You deserve to have the assurance that your savings are secure. 

A free consultation, or a Discovery Call, is the first step towards finding savings. It’s a quick, no-obligation consult where a WCI representative will ask you questions about your current waste management system. It’s easy and informal; a time for you to ask whatever questions are on your mind and for us to learn more about your unique needs.

We typically cover these questions in a Discovery Call:

• How much do you spend on waste and recycling? (We are able to bring the most value to the table for companies who spend a total of more than $10,000 each month) 

• How many locations are in your portfolio?

• How many waste streams do you currently have?

• What problems are you currently experiencing with your waste hauler?

• What are your growth plans over the next 1-3 years?

The purpose of these questions is to gauge how much value we can offer you. We are able to best service companies with substantial waste and recycling expenses and with several locations. If you have no interest in saving or in making your streams more efficient, we aren’t the company you’re looking for. This call is the perfect way to find out if we may be a good fit for your needs.

If there was a possibility that a 15 minute phone call could save you over $100,000 each year, would you make time for it?

Anita Huffman, the Corporate Finance Director at TWE Smart Nonwoven Solutions, did. As a result, her company will save $300,000 in the next three years.

You uncovered more than $12,000 in monthly savings opportunities. Your exhaustive process and your teams dedication to our success has permanently changed our approach to waste management.

Anita took the first step toward her $12,000 savings with our Discovery Call. The questions we asked on that call made it clear that there were likely overlooked savings opportunities - and the rest is history!

90% of companies nationwide are overspending on their waste and recycling expenses. Stop being one of them.

Who Should Sign Up For a Discovery Call?

You should sign up for a discovery call if the following is true for you:

• You spend more than $10,000 total in waste and recycling each month.

• You are a key decision maker for your company.

• You want to save on your waste spend. 

• You want to ensure your waste management is efficient.

• You are tired of paying too much for waste disposal

If you suspect or know that you have waste issues, you need to know exactly what they are so that they be addressed. We provide the solutions you can’t afford not to have.

Sign up for a free consult by clicking on the button below.