Jonathan Gardiner shares some ways to save money on waste management at your organisation:

How full are your bins?

If bins are regularly being picked up half or two thirds full consider increasing the size of your bin to reduce the number of pick-ups and cut transport and tipping charges.

Are you paying for pick-ups you don’t need?

Going into the long summer holidays, make sure your pick-up regime reflects the drop in the amount of waste generated over the next two months. If your scheduled pick-ups remain unchanged, you’ll most likely be paying for empty bins to be emptied!

What’s in the bin?

Carry out an audit of your waste disposal process on site. Walk through what actually happens on the ground rather than looking at the process you have in place to deal with waste (practice rather than theory). Ask your waste company to supply a breakdown of the bin contents from a typical week and see if it all stacks up. This will give you some insight into whether you can reduce the amount of waste that ends up in the bin.

Keep an eye on price adjustment clauses

Check your contract fine print to see whether your waste company can pass on increased charges at short notice. If they can, make a note to renegotiate the small print at next time your contract comes up for renewal.

Review contract pricing

Make a note of your contract expiry date and count back 90 days. Make sure that you give written notice of your intention to review pricing well in advance of the 90 day cut off if you want to avoid your current pricing being locked in for another three years.

If your pricing hasn’t changed for one or more contract terms, you will almost certainly be able to make savings on waste. Have a look at how Tamaki College cut their waste bill by 44% this year.

If you’d like to see how much you can save, talk to Jonathan Gardiner at Total Utilities.  Find out more about the waste services that Jonathan and  the team can assist your organisation with.