How to Stop Overspending on Your Waste Disposal
Sometimes, it can seem like the waste industry is just one big headache. Contracts are difficult to get out of. Pick-ups are often late, or missed completely. Expensive haulers get away with being paid even more. Ultimately, you can end up overpaying by thousands of dollars as the years pass.
Your disposal services are likely not really serving you.
But you can fix that, starting today.
Sometimes it seems like the waste industry is just one big headache. Contracts are difficult to get out of. Pick-ups are often late, or missed completely. Expensive haulers get away with being paid even more. Ultimately, you can end up overpaying by thousands of dollars as the years pass.
Your disposal services are likely not really serving you.
But with some effort you can fix that, starting today.
Download our free Guide to Reducing Waste Expenses to help you get started!
To figure out how to stop overspending, you’ll need to
Review your waste process
Learn the ins and outs of your contract
Make strategic service changes
Monitor those changes
Think of these as the four keys to unlocking savings. 95% of businesses - across all industries - are overspending on waste services. It’s likely that you’re sitting on hundreds or thousands of dollars of waste savings. But use these four keys, and you can find them!
And since you’re likely to be short on time, this post boils it down to the essentials and will walk you through each step.
Reviewing Your Waste Process
You may be looking at your waste stream and thinking, “Where do I even begin?” I recommend that you start with finding support and go from there. Even if you have less than an hour a week to contribute to a review, it is completely doable if you build a team and assign tasks. Your team can support you through the review process.
Recruit colleagues. Having a team to support the review efforts will ensure accountability and effectiveness.
Pick a time frame. Take your team’s availability and scheduling issues at your locations.
Conduct the Basic Audit. Familiarize yourself with the details of your waste streams. Are your dumpsters always full when they are serviced? Do your haulers frequently miss pick-ups? You won’t know until you conduct a basic audit.
Review Your Contract. Pay special attention to key sections on your contract like: pricing, service levels, and terms. (Use the next section to help you know what to look for!)
Analyze findings. You may find that you need different equipment, or fewer pick-ups, or a new hauler.
Evaluate next steps. Now that you know what to fix, you can take steps to solve on-going issues. Get a new hauler and a contract with better terms. Or adjust frequency of pick-ups. All of these will affect your bottom line for years to come.
Learn about Your Waste Hauler Contract
Nobody except legal reads contracts, right? But I like to think of waste hauler contracts as maps - what they contain shows you how to navigate your waste process and find savings.
And don’t worry; you don’t have to read it end to end! Below, you’ll learn what sections of your contract to pay the most attention to.
Terms - This part of your contract discusses how long your contract is in effect. Most hauler contracts are 3-5 years in length. But you’ll also want to check and see how easy it is to get out of these terms. Is there a fee associated with terminating the contract? What options do you have? Answers to questions like these are critical for implementing long-term, ideal waste solutions.
Fees - Does your contract allow price spikes? How often can your hauler raise prices? An ideal contract will regulate or even eliminate price hikes.
Service - How often are your site(s) being serviced? You may not actually need as many pick-ups as you think! There is often a lot of savings to be had in reducing the number of pick-ups, or getting different size dumpsters - or both.
It may also be helpful for you to look over your past few hauler invoices. Do you notice any increases to regular fees? Are you paying for services that aren’t in your contract? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, you know you’re overspending!
Making Disposal Service and Waste Equipment Changes
Every company has at least three options to reduce waste expenses. Once you know your waste process and your hauler contract pretty well, you’ll be able to see where it’s possible for you to make changes.
Suppose, for instance, that you now know that your haulers fees have increased twice in the past year, and that there are other haulers in the area who could do the same service for less. This is valuable information! You could use it to renegotiate your contract with your current hauler, making sure it includes decreased service fees.
Every business is a little different, but at least one of these options will likely be the best one for yours.
Renegotiating Your Contract - Some companies don’t need to get out of their contract completely; they just need different terms or different service levels. Other companies may not financially be able to exit their contract. Either way, for a lot of companies, renegotiating their contract makes financial sense.
Finding a New Hauler/Getting a New Contract - Some companies, on the other hand, find that it makes more financial sense to exit their contract, and pay out for the remainder. If you find yourself in this spot, send out bids to other area haulers and see if someone else can provide better levels of services.
Getting New Equipment - Depending on your situation, getting different sizes of equipment can significantly reduce expenses related to waste equipment. If, for instance, you have two four-yard dumpsters that get picked up five times a week, you could upgrade to an eight-yard dumpsters that gets picked up three times a week - and save a nice sum each year as a result. (Learn more about different kinds of waste equipment!)
Monitoring Those Changes
Moving forward, you’ll want to make sure that the changes you’ve implemented are actually working. If you’ve gotten a different contract or a new hauler, you should see a difference in savings almost immediately. The same with equipment - the savings should be evident on the next month’s invoices.
But in order to make sure you’re getting the full effect of the your efforts, you’ll need to also monitor hauler invoices. We find that haulers make mistakes about 10% of the time - and that adds up fast! Make sure you know what you’re supposed to be charged, and make sure your billing reflects that.
It’s also worth it to periodically revisit your basic audit. Waste needs tend to change over time in every industry, so you want to be sure that you aren’t overlooking savings you could take advantage of.
You Don’t Have to Keep Overspending on Your Waste Disposal
With some effort and patience, you’ll see how waste savings can add up. If you carefully review your waste process, your contract and service levels, and make strategic choices, you can reign in overspending. But you can also find relief from waste worries - from price hikes, from awful service, and from terrible contracts.
You can take charge of your waste worries, and you can start today!
What questions do you have about your current waste management process? Let us know in the comments below, or shoot us an email.
Four Ways You Are Overspending on Waste Expenses
You probably know something is off with your waste disposal. Your waste spend is too high, and prices seem to keep increasing. Your haulers are difficult to work with and provide less than stellar service.
You know something is wrong; you just don’t know what to do about it.
Starting today, you can find relief from your waste worries. You can remedy and even prevent them.
You probably know something is off with your waste disposal. Your waste spend is too high, and prices seem to keep increasing. Your haulers are difficult to work with and provide less than stellar service.
You know something is wrong; you just don’t know what to do about it.
You can find relief from your waste worries. You can remedy and even prevent them.
Let’s take a close look at the top four ways you’re likely overspending and what you can do about it. In this post, we’ll look at the following categories in detail:
Expensive haulers
Bad hauler contracts
Using the wrong equipment
Weak customer service
These are the top ways we’ve seen companies overspend on their waste expenses - and thus the areas where most savings can be had.
You Have Expensive Haulers
Haulers have a secret - they will increase their prices by 5-20% a year. This will happen at least once a year and sometimes up to four times per year. (They don’t warn you; it just happens.)
As time goes by, this pricing compounds - and not in a good way. Say you started employing a hauler in January 2015 at an initial rate of $1,000 a month. Now, you could be paying as much $1,500 a month or more. That’s a 50% increase!
Some businesses notice price hikes; others (unbelievably) don’t. The ones that do often try to fight the price hikes. But if you don’t have a clause in your contract that specifically precludes these price increases, it’s really difficult to win this battle.
Too often, what you don’t know can be used against you. You don’t know the market rates, you don’t know what other companies are paying for the same service. So many haulers think they charge you what they want, and you’ll never know the difference.
How can you prevent overspending on haulers? Consider either renegotiating your contract or getting a different hauler (see the next section for more info on these options). Weight the benefits of partnering with a waste consultant, who knows the market rates and the waste industry inside and out. You’ll also need to monitor hauler invoices closely - they have errors about 10% of the time. You shouldn’t pay for someone else’s mistakes!
2. You Have a Terrible Hauler Contract
Hauler contracts are often structured with one company in mind - and it’s not yours.
A terrible hauler contract:
Does not preclude price spikes
Has inaccurate service levels
Charges you for additional fees
Makes it nearly impossible to cancel
Has no provision for bad service
Make sure you know your contract! The more you know, the more you can fight unfair terms - and the overspending that almost always accompanies it.
3. You’re using the wrong equipment
It’s entirely possible that you’re paying for equipment you don’t actually need. Don’t get me wrong - you need dumpsters (or toters or compactors)! But you may be using the wrong size.
If your on-site dumpsters are less than half full when they are picked up, look into getting fewer or smaller sized dumpsters.
But your problem may not with the equipment you have, but with the equipment you don’t have.
Maybe you have too much cardboard, and want to start packaging it for resale. You need a baler. Or maybe you can reduce the number of pick-ups per week with a compactor.
Or you may have a situation where you need bigger dumpsters. If you have a six foot front loading dumpsters that is picked up every day, it may make more financial sense to upgrade to an eight foot dumpster that only gets picked up three times a week.
How do you evaluate your equipment usage? Do a basic audit of your equipment. Take a picture of how full they are at the same time every day for two to four weeks. It will take less than five minutes from your (or your staff’s) day, and it will give you an exact idea of how full your containers are really getting filled. Why pay for four-day a week service when you only need two-day a week service?
4. You Have Weak Customer Service
How often do you have problems with your waste and recycling hauler or broker? Do you or your staff constantly have to keep on top of them to receive quality service?
Not many businesses realize the amount of effort they or their staff are putting into their waste management.
You shouldn’t have to try to convince your waste partner(s) to show up and do what they’ve already agreed to do. It shouldn’t be work to get them to cooperate - they should be doing work for you.
Give some thought to the amount of time your and your staff is spending trying to solve waste-related problems. Your time - and theirs - is an added expense. How would they spend their time if they were unburdened from waste worries?
As the old adage goes, time is money. You are not obligated to overspend on either for waste management.
Eradicate this expense by reconsidering your waste partnership. Want to become your staff’s hero? Ask them how much time they spend tracking down haulers. Evaluate how bad your waste management customer service really is. Can your issues be addressed by them? If not, how long will you pay for poor service?
Evaluate Your Waste Management with Confidence
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 they are the most expensive hauler in town. They’re not going to find ways for you to save on your waste and recycling expenses.
We will.
Schedule a free consultation to learn about how we can find the savings opportunities you’re sitting on.
Four Ways You Are Overspending on Waste Expenses
You probably know something is off with your waste disposal. Your waste spend is too high, and prices seem to keep increasing. Your haulers are difficult to work with and provide less than stellar service.
You know something is wrong; you just don’t know what to do about it.
Starting today, you can find relief from your waste worries. You can remedy and even prevent them.
You probably know something is off with your waste disposal. Your waste spend is too high, and prices seem to keep increasing. Your haulers are difficult to work with and provide less than stellar service.
You know something is wrong; you just don’t know what to do about it.
You can find relief from your waste worries. You can remedy and even prevent them.
Let’s take a close look at the top four ways you’re likely overspending and what you can do about it. In this post, we’ll look at the following categories in detail:
Expensive haulers
Bad hauler contracts
Using the wrong equipment
Weak customer service
These are the top ways we’ve seen companies overspend on their waste expenses - and thus the areas where most savings can be had.
You Have Expensive Haulers
Haulers have a secret - they will increase their prices by 5-20% a year. This will happen at least once a year and sometimes up to four times per year. (They don’t warn you; it just happens.)
As time goes by, this pricing compounds - and not in a good way. Say you started employing a hauler in January 2015 at an initial rate of $1,000 a month. Now, you could be paying as much $1,500 a month or more. That’s a 50% increase!
Some businesses notice price hikes; others (unbelievably) don’t. The ones that do often try to fight the price hikes. But if you don’t have a clause in your contract that specifically precludes these price increases, it’s really difficult to win this battle.
Too often, what you don’t know can be used against you. You don’t know the market rates, you don’t know what other companies are paying for the same service. So many haulers think they charge you what they want, and you’ll never know the difference.
How can you prevent overspending on haulers? Consider either renegotiating your contract or getting a different hauler (see the next section for more info on these options). Weight the benefits of partnering with a waste consultant, who knows the market rates and the waste industry inside and out. You’ll also need to monitor hauler invoices closely - they have errors about 10% of the time. You shouldn’t pay for someone else’s mistakes!
2. You Have a Terrible Hauler Contract
Hauler contracts are often structured with one company in mind - and it’s not yours.
A terrible hauler contract:
Does not preclude price spikes
Has inaccurate service levels
Charges you for additional fees
Makes it nearly impossible to cancel
Has no provision for bad service
Make sure you know your contract! The more you know, the more you can fight unfair terms - and the overspending that almost always accompanies it.
3. You’re using the wrong equipment
It’s entirely possible that you’re paying for equipment you don’t actually need. Don’t get me wrong - you need dumpsters (or toters or compactors)! But you may be using the wrong size.
If your on-site dumpsters are less than half full when they are picked up, look into getting fewer or smaller sized dumpsters.
But your problem may not with the equipment you have, but with the equipment you don’t have.
Maybe you have too much cardboard, and want to start packaging it for resale. You need a baler. Or maybe you can reduce the number of pick-ups per week with a compactor.
Or you may have a situation where you need bigger dumpsters. If you have a six foot front loading dumpsters that is picked up every day, it may make more financial sense to upgrade to an eight foot dumpster that only gets picked up three times a week.
How do you evaluate your equipment usage? Do a basic audit of your equipment. Take a picture of how full they are at the same time every day for two to four weeks. It will take less than five minutes from your (or your staff’s) day, and it will give you an exact idea of how full your containers are really getting filled. Why pay for four-day a week service when you only need two-day a week service?
4. You Have Weak Customer Service
How often do you have problems with your waste and recycling hauler or broker? Do you or your staff constantly have to keep on top of them to receive quality service?
Not many businesses realize the amount of effort they or their staff are putting into their waste management.
You shouldn’t have to try to convince your waste partner(s) to show up and do what they’ve already agreed to do. It shouldn’t be work to get them to cooperate - they should be doing work for you.
Give some thought to the amount of time your and your staff is spending trying to solve waste-related problems. Your time - and theirs - is an added expense. How would they spend their time if they were unburdened from waste worries?
As the old adage goes, time is money. You are not obligated to overspend on either for waste management.
Eradicate this expense by reconsidering your waste partnership. Want to become your staff’s hero? Ask them how much time they spend tracking down haulers. Evaluate how bad your waste management customer service really is. Can your issues be addressed by them? If not, how long will you pay for poor service?
Evaluate Your Waste Management with Confidence
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 they are the most expensive hauler in town. They’re not going to find ways for you to save on your waste and recycling expenses.
We will.
Schedule a free consultation to learn about how we can find the savings opportunities you’re sitting on.
The Five Biggest Ways We Find You Savings
If you knew there was an 80% chance of reducing your expenses, would you go for it?
This article is part of a series on our savings process. You can read more about our audit process here!
If you knew there was an 80% chance of reducing your expenses, would you go for it?
When it comes to our waste, utility, and telecom audits, the odds are in your favor! Over our 17 year history, we’ve seen that that 80% of companies nationwide can save on their utility and telecom - and 90% of companies can save on waste.
Dozens of companies like yours have already gone through our audit program - and saved thousands in the process.
One of the most frequent questions we get asked is “Where exactly do you find savings? What aspects of my portfolio show overlooked savings?”
Most savings we find generally fall into five buckets.
We usually find savings by:
Finding and implementing your ideal service levels
Changing on-site equipment
Finding credits
Reviewing meter usage
Reviewing on-going invoices
We’ve found substantial savings in just one of these buckets - and in all of them combined. It all depends on the specifics of your company. Let’s take a detailed look at each of these buckets.
Finding and implementing your ideal service levels
When we conduct our waste and utility audits, we often find that companies are not receiving their ideal service levels.
Psst! Download our free guide to savings!
We’re actually in the middle of an audit with one of our clients right now where we’re evaluating this very thing. This particular client has over a dozen hotels in the Midwest, and we’re going to determine if we should negotiate contracts with seasonal clauses.
Since hotels are typically booked more often during holidays and summer, their waste needs will likely fluctuate. They’ll benefit from service levels that reflect this fluctuation. So we’re crunching numbers and reviewing invoice history to figure out how much usage fluctuates over an eight month period. We’re comparing the number of overages to the occupancy rates to see if there’s a correlation.
Sound like a lot of effort? It is! But this level of scrutiny is what makes our audits so effective.
Changing on-site equipment
When we do a waste audit, we frequently find that by changing the kind of on-site equipment, the company can realize substantial savings.
Consider this example:
A recent client was using a 20 yard roll-off container on their location. These containers are often used at construction site for debris. They were using this size container at two different locations at the same property, but after analyzing their cost and the waste stream we determined that neither of these containers were a good fit.
We knew 8 yard dumpsters would be cheaper - and we knew that they’re easier to work worth, take up less space and look much better! We recommended replacing both of them with 8 yard dumpster to be picked up once per week.
The result? This simple fix saved the client $997/month!
Finding utility and telecom credits
Just this past month, we partnered with a client who had signed what turned out to be a pretty decent waste service agreement. They had specified in their contract that they were not going to be charged for a fee called Regulatory Cost Recovery. But guess what? A few months after the contract took effect, their vendor charged them for it - and didn’t stop!
We found several hundred dollars in credits, addressed the issue with the vendor, and got the client their credits in the span of about three weeks.
We apply this level of thoroughness to every aspect of your portfolio - whether it’s waste, utility, or telecom audits. Your bottom line deserves nothing less.
Reviewing meter usage
Meters gauge your energy consumption and your power quality measurements. Their readings are gauged and the electric company reads them to know what you should be charged each month.
How often do you check your meters? As companies grow and jobs change hands, meters can be forgotten in the shuffle.
The more meters you have, the more likely it is that you’re being incorrectly charged for them. You may be charged for meters that are no longer in use. You may have too many meters on your site.
We’ve seen this time and time again - companies grow, and buildings change hands. It’s easy to forget things like meter usage in the tyranny of the urgent. There will always be more pressing things to think about.
But the beauty of what we do is that whatever savings we find compounds. It’s not just about the savings you get in the first month; but in the overall savings you benefit from over time.
Saving $100 every month on your utility bill may not sound like much, but in the first year you’ll save $1200. In the next four years, you’ll save almost $5000. So in the life of your property, you can easily save thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Audits are zero-risk investment that compound over time.
Reviewing on-going invoices
We know it's not enough to find savings for you - we make sure your savings are protected. First, we ensure that your invoices are in accordance with the stipulations in your service agreement. As in the example above, sometimes service providers agree to one thing, then charge for another! Your vendors need detailed oversight.
Second, we seek credits on your behalf. We’ve come to realize that support staff and administrators often are pressed for time. They don’t always have the time to spare; they don’t have several hours over the span of a week to work out issues with their hauler. So we make those calls for you; freeing up your time and your staff’s time - and ensuring that you get whatever credits you’re due.
Read more about how we fight for credits!
How long will you wait to start saving?
We’ve tailored our process for cost-conscious companies that want to find savings, but who are short on time.
Our risk-free audit process requires zero capital outlay, and is guaranteed to be cash-flow positive. In other words, we’ve made sure you have nothing to lose - and everything to gain!
Want to learn more about the effects of our audits? What questions do you have waste or utility audits? Want to know more about them? Let me know your thoughts below!
How to Stop Overspending on Your Waste Disposal
Sometimes, it can seem like the waste industry is just one big headache. Contracts are difficult to get out of. Pick-ups are often late, or missed completely. Expensive haulers get away with being paid even more. Ultimately, you can end up overpaying by thousands of dollars as the years pass.
Your disposal services are likely not really serving you.
But you can fix that, starting today.
Sometimes it seems like the waste industry is just one big headache. Contracts are difficult to get out of. Pick-ups are often late, or missed completely. Expensive haulers get away with being paid even more. Ultimately, you can end up overpaying by thousands of dollars as the years pass.
Your disposal services are likely not really serving you.
But with some effort you can fix that, starting today.
Download our free Guide to Reducing Waste Expenses to help you get started!
To figure out how to stop overspending, you’ll need to
Review your waste process
Learn the ins and outs of your contract
Make strategic service changes
Monitor those changes
Think of these as the four keys to unlocking savings. 95% of businesses - across all industries - are overspending on waste services. It’s likely that you’re sitting on hundreds or thousands of dollars of waste savings. But use these four keys, and you can find them!
And since you’re likely to be short on time, this post boils it down to the essentials and will walk you through each step.
Reviewing Your Waste Process
You may be looking at your waste stream and thinking, “Where do I even begin?” I recommend that you start with finding support and go from there. Even if you have less than an hour a week to contribute to a review, it is completely doable if you build a team and assign tasks. Your team can support you through the review process.
Recruit colleagues. Having a team to support the review efforts will ensure accountability and effectiveness.
Pick a time frame. Take your team’s availability and scheduling issues at your locations.
Conduct the Basic Audit. Familiarize yourself with the details of your waste streams. Are your dumpsters always full when they are serviced? Do your haulers frequently miss pick-ups? You won’t know until you conduct a basic audit.
Review Your Contract. Pay special attention to key sections on your contract like: pricing, service levels, and terms. (Use the next section to help you know what to look for!)
Analyze findings. You may find that you need different equipment, or fewer pick-ups, or a new hauler.
Evaluate next steps. Now that you know what to fix, you can take steps to solve on-going issues. Get a new hauler and a contract with better terms. Or adjust frequency of pick-ups. All of these will affect your bottom line for years to come.
Learn about Your Waste Hauler Contract
Nobody except legal reads contracts, right? But I like to think of waste hauler contracts as maps - what they contain shows you how to navigate your waste process and find savings.
And don’t worry; you don’t have to read it end to end! Below, you’ll learn what sections of your contract to pay the most attention to.
Terms - This part of your contract discusses how long your contract is in effect. Most hauler contracts are 3-5 years in length. But you’ll also want to check and see how easy it is to get out of these terms. Is there a fee associated with terminating the contract? What options do you have? Answers to questions like these are critical for implementing long-term, ideal waste solutions.
Fees - Does your contract allow price spikes? How often can your hauler raise prices? An ideal contract will regulate or even eliminate price hikes.
Service - How often are your site(s) being serviced? You may not actually need as many pick-ups as you think! There is often a lot of savings to be had in reducing the number of pick-ups, or getting different size dumpsters - or both.
It may also be helpful for you to look over your past few hauler invoices. Do you notice any increases to regular fees? Are you paying for services that aren’t in your contract? If the answer is yes to either of these questions, you know you’re overspending!
Making Disposal Service and Waste Equipment Changes
Every company has at least three options to reduce waste expenses. Once you know your waste process and your hauler contract pretty well, you’ll be able to see where it’s possible for you to make changes.
Suppose, for instance, that you now know that your haulers fees have increased twice in the past year, and that there are other haulers in the area who could do the same service for less. This is valuable information! You could use it to renegotiate your contract with your current hauler, making sure it includes decreased service fees.
Every business is a little different, but at least one of these options will likely be the best one for yours.
Renegotiating Your Contract - Some companies don’t need to get out of their contract completely; they just need different terms or different service levels. Other companies may not financially be able to exit their contract. Either way, for a lot of companies, renegotiating their contract makes financial sense.
Finding a New Hauler/Getting a New Contract - Some companies, on the other hand, find that it makes more financial sense to exit their contract, and pay out for the remainder. If you find yourself in this spot, send out bids to other area haulers and see if someone else can provide better levels of services.
Getting New Equipment - Depending on your situation, getting different sizes of equipment can significantly reduce expenses related to waste equipment. If, for instance, you have two four-yard dumpsters that get picked up five times a week, you could upgrade to an eight-yard dumpsters that gets picked up three times a week - and save a nice sum each year as a result. (Learn more about different kinds of waste equipment!)
Monitoring Those Changes
Moving forward, you’ll want to make sure that the changes you’ve implemented are actually working. If you’ve gotten a different contract or a new hauler, you should see a difference in savings almost immediately. The same with equipment - the savings should be evident on the next month’s invoices.
But in order to make sure you’re getting the full effect of the your efforts, you’ll need to also monitor hauler invoices. We find that haulers make mistakes about 10% of the time - and that adds up fast! Make sure you know what you’re supposed to be charged, and make sure your billing reflects that.
It’s also worth it to periodically revisit your basic audit. Waste needs tend to change over time in every industry, so you want to be sure that you aren’t overlooking savings you could take advantage of.
You Don’t Have to Keep Overspending on Your Waste Disposal
With some effort and patience, you’ll see how waste savings can add up. If you carefully review your waste process, your contract and service levels, and make strategic choices, you can reign in overspending. But you can also find relief from waste worries - from price hikes, from awful service, and from terrible contracts.
You can take charge of your waste worries, and you can start today!
What questions do you have about your current waste management process? Let us know in the comments below, or shoot us an email.