The Trouble with Trash

By Kenzo Kawasaki

Image courtesy wikimedia

Nobody likes trash.  It’s messy.  It’s smelly.  It can also be quite expensive to deal with if you own a business that produces it in quantity.  If you’re lucky, your landlord provides a dumpster and pays to have the trash hauled away.  If not, then the onus is on you to deal with who’s going to haul away your trash for you.  The blog below will explain some of the factors that you need to be aware if you’re forced to take out the trash.

The first thing you need to do is to assess your trash.

Just as no two snowflakes are alike, trash comes in many shapes and sizes.  Exactly how much trash does your business generate?  What kind of trash do you deal with?  Depending on the type and volume of trash your business generates, this will help you decide on the size of dumpster your business needs.  This also necessitates that your business doesn’t generate any kind of waste that is prohibited by law for trash haulers to remove.  This includes chemicals, flammable substances, waste oil, etc.  Prohibited substances will have to be hauled away separately.

To compact, or not to compact – One way to get a bigger bang for your buck when it comes to negotiating a contract with a hauler is to compact your waste.  Compacting certain kinds of waste can reduce the volume of your trash in the dumpster by as much as 70%.  If most of your waste consists of cardboard, wood, paper or plastic, it would behoove you to look into a baler. Those valuable commodities can be sold turning your packaging trash into cash. For garbage only there are three types:  horizontal stationary press, self-contained, and vertical compactors.  The self-contained variety is only needed if the waste you produce consists of biological matter, such as food or medical waste.  The other consideration you need to make is whether it’s better to buy or lease a commercial trash compactor.  While buying a compactor may at first seem like a better deal, don’t forget to factor in routine maintenance and repair.  Leased compactors come with maintenance and repair built into the contract. 

Negotiating a trash hauling contract isn’t as difficult as most business owners think.  The trick is being able to determine how much and how often the trash needs to be hauled off.    This means first determining how big of a dumpster you need.  These are sized by the cubic yard, ranging from fifteen to forty cubic yards.  The bigger the dumpster, the less often the trash needs to be hauled off.  That being said, bigger dumpsters also leave a larger footprint in your parking lot, with a 40-cubic-yard dumpster measuring 22-feet long x 7.5-feet wide x 8 feet tall.  Meanwhile a 30-cubic-foot model is 22’x7.5’x 6-feet tall, which is much easier for your employees to load. 

Image courtesy wikimedia

What happens if I order the wrong dumpster? If you order a dumpster that is insufficient for your needs, not only do you risk making a mess of your parking lot, but you will in all likelihood be charged additional fees.  These fees can include trip fees, overage fees and overloading fees.  Every time a hauler is called into empty your dumpster over and above the times specified on your contract, you will be charged.  Every time you overload your dumpster beyond the volume specified in your contract, you will be charged.  Just as there is no such thing as a free lunch, there is also no such thing as a free haul in the trash hauling business.  (You also have to make sure your dumpster is located in a place where it can be easily accessed by the hauler or you will incur a trip fee, since the truck will have to come back to empty your dumpster at a later date.)

Maximizing your plan with a waste hauler – Since nobody likes to waste either time or money, the first thing you need to take into consideration when negotiating a contract is how often your waste needs to be hauled.  Ideally you want to craft a plan that allows you to minimize the amount of times the hauler comes to collect a half-empty dumpster.  On the other hand, you also want to minimize the possibility that by the time the truck arrives, your dumpster is overflowing.  When negotiating a long-term contract, it’s vital that you make sure everything from the size of the dumpster and frequency of hauling, to payment terms, charges for damaging a dumpster, penalties and non-acceptable trash items are all spelled out in writing.  Also make sure the contract spells out how often and by how much your price can increase.    Don’t forget to read the contract in its entirety to make certain there are no hidden fees or weasel clauses that could suddenly kick in to raise your rates mid-contract.   If one hauler charges significantly less than the competition, make sure their contract hasn’t left out a detail contained in competing contracts that could later cause your cost to suddenly go up to achieve parity. 

Image courtesy flickr

Make sure you check out any haulers before you sign on the dotted line. - While every business owner is always looking to save money, price alone should never be the sole reason to sign up with a hauler.  Things like reputation, trustworthiness and the ability to be flexible are just as important.  This means before you start calling local trash haulers to submit a bid, you should take the time to check out every prospective hauler online.  You’d be surprised what you can find out both good and bad about hauling companies by doing a web search.

 Everything from kudos for a job well done, to complaints from past and present customers can easily by located online.  No longer can companies get away with mistreating customers since it’s now so easy to post a pet peeve online.  While any company could have one or two complaints filed against them online, avoid those that have numerous complaints.  Take the time to ask for and call references.  Find out from existing customers how prompt and courteous their haulers really is.  Talk to other business owners to find out which haulers they use as well as what they think of them.

The bottom line is, the more time you spend to check out what will get for your money when it comes to hiring a trash hauler, the better your chances of getting your money’s worth.  The last thing you want to do is sign a long-term contract with a hauler only to find out you’ve been duped. Then the only thing that’s going to wind up in the dumps is you.

Kenzo Kawasaki is president of BC Hydraulic Services, a commercial trash compactor service company based in Jacksonville, Florida.