How to Assess Hidden Costs in Your Waste Management Operation

Waste management is an essential activity for any business. It also presents economical challenges. However, you can cut expenses by assessing the hidden costs in your waste management operation. Is your waste management company being totally upfront with its pricing? This is just one consideration. Once you find hidden costs, which waste consultants such as Global Trash Solutions can help you identify, you can then take steps to reduce expenses.

To assess these:

• Check for Hidden Fees: An overflow or overage charge can be quite expensive. Add-on fees may also be charged for dumpsters with open lids or trash that is placed beside a dumpster. If your waste bill is going up, it’s important to understand the reasons.
• Determine How Much Waste You’re Producing: Rather than passively throwing things away, check how full your waste containers are when the trash is collected. Keep track to determine whether there are seasonal fluctuations. With a clearer picture, you can reduce the number and size of containers used, as well as waste collection frequency.
• Work with Other Businesses: It helps to know what other businesses pay for waste disposal, but another way to save is to consolidate dumpsters or share waste services with other companies—by, for example, creating a waste recycling group. Together, you can renegotiate a contract; banding together gives you bargaining power to manage commercial waste costs.
• Assess Where the Costs Are Going: To make sense of what your contractor is charging, break down the costs. Waste management costs include containers, labor, collection fees/use of transfer vehicles, fuel, waste processing/storage, landfill taxes, and licensing/compliance costs.
• Reduce Your Waste: The less waste that is hauled away, the less you’ll spend on waste removal. An effective way to reduce waste production is to recycle. You’ll, of course, have to pay recycling fees, which vary by company and location, but you can start saving money quickly by recycling more waste.

How to Reduce Costs

The most accurate and efficient way to reduce costs is to can work with your waste management service to determine your exact expenditures. The company may even perform a waste management audit for a precise look at the services you use and need, and that will help with waste reduction. By analyzing resource consumption and where waste is being generated, you can target where to cut waste and how much of it can be recycled.

Compacting your waste helps as well. Balers, shredders, and compacting machines can reduce the volume of waste you throw out, reducing the resources and costs associated with collections. Another helpful step is to reduce the amount of waste produced internally, so less needs to be disposed of.

Hire a Waste Management Company

Of course, doing these things on your own presents challenges. An experienced waste management consultant can help reduce waste, find more effective ways to dispose of or recycle materials, and help you save money. To learn more about our consulting, brokering, and waste management services, as well as our products and service/repair options, contact us for your free quote or call 866-760-8194.