Two problems, in the right order
Waste has two distinct cost problems, and organizations usually attack the second one first.
The service problem: you are collecting containers that are not full, at a frequency nobody has reviewed since the site opened.
The paper problem: the contract auto-renews, the rates escalate annually, and the invoice is mostly fees that were never negotiated.
Fix the service first. Right-sizing reduces cost immediately, requires no supplier agreement, and changes what you are buying before you go to market. Renegotiating the rate on a service you should not be buying is the wrong sequence.
Right-sizing is an observation exercise
Container fill levels at the point of collection, recorded across several weeks, by site and by container. Photographs work. So do driver reports if you can get them.
Almost every multi-site portfolio finds containers being collected half full somewhere. A dumpster sized for a business that has since shrunk, twice-weekly pickup at a site that now generates half the volume, a compactor cycling before it is full.
Reducing frequency or container size converts straight to savings. It is also the cheapest thing in this category to get wrong in the other direction, so leave headroom and watch overflow for a month after any change.
The invoice is mostly fees
The contracted haul rate and container rental are usually a minority of what you pay. The rest:
- Fuel surcharge, often a percentage of the base, adjusted monthly against an index
- Environmental or administrative fees, frequently a percentage, frequently unexplained
- Container maintenance charges
- Overage for containers filled above the line
- Contamination charges on recycling streams
- Regulatory cost recovery, a category that tends to expand
Most are percentages applied to a base, which means they rise every time the base rises. Cap them in the contract, as a fixed amount or a stated maximum percentage. An uncapped percentage fee is an open-ended price increase with a name on it.
Auto-renewal is the category’s signature trap
Hauler agreements routinely auto-renew for multi-year terms unless cancelled inside a narrow window, often 60 to 90 days before expiry, occasionally by certified mail only.
Miss the window and you are committed for another term, usually with an annual escalator attached. This is the most common single failure we find in waste, and it costs more than any rate negotiation would have saved.
Diarize the notice date, not the expiry date, for every waste agreement in the portfolio. Then check it twice a year.
What to put in the RFP
- Container inventory by site: sizes, quantities, frequency, compactor details
- Observed fill data, so bidders price the service you need rather than the one you have
- Waste stream composition where known, and diversion targets if you have them
- A complete fee schedule, with caps on every percentage-based charge
- Contamination and overage definitions, with photographic evidence required to charge
- Term and notice provisions, explicitly overriding any auto-renewal language
- Reporting requirements: weights by stream, by site, monthly
What good looks like afterward
Containers sized to actual volume, fees capped and checked against the contract, recycling measured separately from disposal, notice dates diarized, and invoices reconciled against contracted rates rather than paid on trust. The value leakage checklist covers the ongoing checks.
Waste sits inside the broader facilities services category. For the sourcing event, see RFP management.
- Container inventory by site
- Observed fill data
- Waste stream composition
- A complete fee schedule
- Contamination and overage definitions
- Term and notice provisions
- Reporting requirements
Issued in your structure, not the vendor's, so every bidder prices the same scope and the bids can be compared line for line.
How we help
- Spend Analysis: Spend analysis establishes where your organization stands and where value is trapped.
- Procurement Transformation: Transformation decides where procurement should go and what deserves resources first.
- Strategic Sourcing: Strategic sourcing turns strategy into implemented results.
- Value Tracking: Value tracking protects and extends value after implementation.
- Procurement Training: Training builds your team's capability so results last after the engagement ends.
- Fractional CPO: A fractional CPO gives you senior procurement leadership without a full-time hire: someone who owns the function, sets the commercial agenda and builds the team that eventually replaces them.
- Procurement Assessment: A structured diagnostic of how procurement actually operates across six dimensions, evidenced rather than asserted.
- Category Management: Category strategies that survive contact with the business.
- Supplier Negotiation: Negotiation outcomes are decided in the preparation.
- Cost Reduction: Cost reduction judged on what reaches the P&L.
- RFP Management: We run the whole sourcing event: scope, bidder list, document, evaluation and award.
Frequently asked questions
Why is our waste invoice so much higher than the contracted rate?
Because the contracted haul and rental rates are usually a minority of the invoice. The rest is fuel surcharge, environmental or administrative fees, container maintenance, overage and contamination charges, and regulatory cost recovery. Most of them are expressed as a percentage and most are uncapped in the contract.
How do we right-size waste service?
With a container audit: observed fill levels at collection across several weeks, by site and container. Most portfolios are collecting half-empty containers somewhere, and reducing frequency or container size cuts cost immediately without any negotiation. Do this before going to market, because it changes what you are buying.
What is the auto-renewal trap in hauler contracts?
Many hauler agreements renew automatically for multi-year terms unless cancelled in a narrow window, often 60 to 90 days before expiry, sometimes by certified mail only. Miss it and you are locked in for another term at rates that escalate annually. Diarize every waste contract expiry with the notice period, not the end date.
Should recycling be a separate contract?
Not necessarily separate, but separately priced and separately measured. Recycling economics depend on commodity markets and contamination rates, and bundling it into a single waste price hides both. Where recycling carries a rebate or a processing cost, that should be visible and its basis stated.
What should a waste and recycling RFP include?
A site-by-site container inventory with sizes, quantities and collection frequency, observed fill data, waste stream composition where known, service level expectations, a full fee schedule with caps on any percentage-based surcharge, contamination and overage definitions with photographic evidence requirements, contract term and notice provisions, and reporting requirements including weights by stream.
Can we reduce cost without changing haulers?
Frequently, yes. Right-sizing, frequency reduction, consolidating containers across adjacent sites and correcting billing errors are all available without switching, and a hauler facing a credible market test is usually willing to revisit rates rather than lose the account.