You’re overspending on your waste. We’re 90% sure, in fact. 

How do we know? We’ve worked with hundreds of companies in the past seventeen years, and we realized that 90% of them had waste disposal problems they didn’t know about. 

What you don’t know is costing you. 

Most of the overspending can be completely eliminated. How? By fixing your waste hauler contract. 

All of these common problems can be prevented by having the right waste service agreement:

• Waste hauler price hikes allowed

• No recourse for waste service issues

• Waste service contract auto-renewal

• Lengthy contract terms

• Ancillary fees allowed

Fix these things, and you’ll likely save upwards of 20% on your waste spend. 

Psst! Learn more about your top 5 hidden waste problems.

Let’s examine what your issues are in each of these categories - and what your solution possibilities are. 

Waste hauler price hikes must be eradicated

Haulers will increase their prices by up to 10% at least once a year. We’ve seen haulers that will increase them 4 times a year. 

When you set up your contract, they calculate their profit margin by including these price hikes. 

Over a number of years, this pricing compounds. Say you’ve employed a hauler for four years. You started paying them $1,000 a month. With rate increases, you could be paying as much $1,500 a month or more by the time your term ends. That’s a 50% increase! 

Prevent price hikes by including language in your contract that caps or limits them. It’s unlikely that the hauler will agree to completely eradicating them; after all expenses do tend to go up over time. But you can limit the increases - and in doing that, make budgeting simpler. 

Ensure recourse for waste service issues

When waste and recycling goes wrong, it doesn’t go unnoticed. Visitors or residents on your property are going to take note. So resolving - and preventing - these issues is critical.  

What does your contract specify about missed service or service that is performed poorly? If you don’t have language about this in your waste hauler contract, you’re leaving yourself open to some gnarly problems. 

We have the time and knowledge to keep your haulers in line. If there are continued issues with your hauler and their service, you need to know that you have an out if you need one. Many contracts will include a poor performance clause, but not many companies have the expertise or time needed to hold companies accountable. 

At least four communication touches have to happen before an issues is resolved. This amounts to at least 15 minutes for each waste issue. I actually find that it takes me closer to 45 total minutes to fully resolve each issue. 

You can’t afford to spend this amount of time on a waste or billing issue - and neither can your staff. 

We are our clients waste ally. When service issues arise, we address them on your behalf and make sure full resolution is attained. You and your staff don’t need more to do. 

This is part of the reason why Vic Nussbaum of Southern foods wrote of his relief that he no longer has to manage his waste disposal issues: “Your thoroughness allowed me to spend time ‘managing’ the operations here at Southern Foods, instead of ‘managing’ our waste bills.”

Your time is your greatest asset - and we’re passionate about making sure yours is protected. 

Eliminate waste service contract auto-renewal

You’re making your hauler rich by not eliminating your auto-renewal clause. 

Most haulers are betting on the fact that you’re not going to remember when your contract expires three or five years from now. They know that if you do, you may choose to go with a different hauler, or start changing your contract. So they, in effect, limit the possibility of that happening. 

Your contract will automatically renew without your input. So we’ve seen a lot of our customers  get stuck with a service that may or may not be ideal. 

Waste needs often change over time, and waste service levels may need adjusting. Your waste market may change as well. More haulers may be available in your area than before. You may have the option to secure lower rates and more favorable terms with another hauler. 

The language often looks like this:

Allowing your contract to auto-renew doesn’t allow you a chance to review what is really best for your company. 

Cancel your auto-renewal clause. Or let us do it for you! 

When we cancel the autorenewal clauses for our clients, it allows us the opportunity to find better pricing or to renegotiate new contracts, both of which contributes to thousands of dollars in savings over time. Our clients never overpay for their waste and recycling spend.

Shorten waste contract terms

Shorter contract terms allow you to more frequently evaluate your contract and service needs.

To put it another way: the longer your contract is, the fewer opportunities you have to analyze your best options. 

Why? Market rates change. New vendors become available. You don’t need to lock yourself into a contract more than three years. Otherwise, you’re likely putting yourself in a position where you’re overspending. 

You’re overpaying on your waste spend because your contract term is preventing you from getting perspective. 

Limit your contract term length to three years. The norm is five years - and too much can change in that time. Leave yourself room to change when necessary. 

We manage our clients contracts and track expiration dates closely. It’s one less thing our clients have to think about. They can rest easy knowing that we’re on the lookout for better options when they arise. We present solutions and implement them - and you get the benefit to your bottom line.  

Eliminate ancillary waste hauler fees

We eliminate or reduce fees like the following on most of our client’s contracts - like Rhonda’s! 

 Here are some examples of these fees: 

Container Service Plan: Enrollment in this plan (involuntary though it may be) allows you to replace your container as necessary. But most people don’t need to replace their garbage container frequently - some of our customers have containers that over 5 years old and still look fine. 

Container Refresh fee: Republic has a fee called a “Container Refresh” fee that allows the customer to get a no-cost swap out of their container every 2 years. Which sounds great - if your container gets rusted out, you can replace it for free. But again, most containers are good for much longer than that.

Fuel/environmental fee: The hauler is charging you for the gas it takes to get to your site and deliver your trash to the dump. But they don’t just charge you.They charge everyone on their route a fuel fee. What does this mean? They are more than recouping the cost of gas. 

Recycling recovery fee: This fee is charged by the hauler to transfer your recyclable material from your site to the drop off site. 

Minimum tonnage fees: The hauler will charge you this fee for not having enough garbage in the container. These fees typically only apply to roll-off or open-top accounts.

Administrative fees: Typically charged if a client elects to receive paper invoices instead of electronic delivery of invoices.

Regulatory Cost recovery fee: Some haulers, (like Waste Management) will charge this fee to cover costs in other regions - not necessarily yours. Your fees go towards paying other people’s garbage disposal. 

We eliminate or significantly reduce waste fees for every client we can. Some are in the middle of less than ideal contracts, so we wait until those expire, then replace them with better agreements. 

Put our expertise to work for you

You can stop overpaying by having an expert fixing your waste contract. 

We make sure every contract we touch:

• Caps price hikes

• Provides recourse for waste service issues

• Eliminates your auto-renewal clause

• Limits contract terms

• Reduces or eliminates your ancillary fees

We don’t just fix these problems for our clients; we actively look for additional ways to save. We monitor billing, and we are your first line of defense when service issues arise. 

Take the first step and see what savings opportunities you can take advantage of. Give us a call today at 828-386-4153 and ask us any questions you may have about your waste spend.