National Waste Associates Delivers $500k In Cost Savings For Regional Supermarket Chain

Over two years, the team at National Waste Associates (NWA) worked continuously to reduce a supermarket retailer’s waste spend by $500k through service optimizations.

The Challenge

Material management is a 24-hour concern at supermarkets, and sites generally use compactors to get the maximum waste storage capacity from the smallest physical footprint. A regional supermarket chain used compactors at their 134 stores, but they weren’t getting the return they expected on their investment.

Store employees were checking their own container fill levels and managing service schedules. This resulted in low tonnage for each pull, extra work for staff and excessive haulage costs. They needed help to increase compactor efficiency and generate cost, labor and environmental savings.

The Solution

Load Optimization. The Account Management team reviewed the tonnages at each site and for each container, and implemented a program that maximized compactor tonnage at all stores. The target weight for each container was calculated based on its size, material, and historic performance.

Focus was initially directed at the sites with the greatest waste activity and the highest spend, as these generated the greatest initial savings. Routine tonnage analytics were carried out to achieve ongoing load optimization. To account for seasonal fluctuations in stores’ waste volumes, the team analyzed compactor tonnage multiple times each year. This resulted in cumulative savings of $232k over the contract term.

Right Sizing. Using the compactor tonnage analysis, the team was also able to recommend compactor specifications and sizes that improved service efficiency and reduced haulage costs. This gave the client additional cumulative savings of $227k over the contract term.

Organics Initiatives. By analyzing the waste composition across the entire account and working with composting and dehydrating facilities, together with their extensive network of national haulers, NWA’s experts also identified an opportunity to separate out organic material from the waste stream. This delivered significant cost savings and reduced the supermarket’s environmental impact by diverting hundreds of tons of valuable material from landfill.

Hauler Upgrades. NWA’s market experts audited all of the supermarket’s waste invoices, reviewing hauler prices and performance against their calculated norms. This analysis enabled them to identify haulers that were over-servicing or overcharging the individual locations. These haulers were switched out for those in NWA’s extensive network that generated cost savings for the supermarket. This produced an added cumulative savings of $42k over the term of the contract.

Service Efficiency. The team coordinated route schedule changes for every holiday of the year. This made the service more efficient and cost-effective at what can otherwise be challenging times of year.

24/7-Availability. NWA provided a 24/7-repair service for all of the supermarket’s compactors. This service was invaluable to the customer, dispatching emergency repairs for frozen or broken compactors in the middle of the night and over weekends to make sure that waste never stacked up on site.

 The Results

With an integrated strategy of hauler management, load optimization and compactor monitoring, National Waste Associates reduced the supermarket’s waste spend by $500k over two years.

The service changes that they managed didn’t just save the client money, but also generated environmental savings by reducing waste transport and diverting valuable materials from landfill.

Want our waste experts to do the same for your business?

Find out how NWA can clean up your waste management operations
and save you a ton of money.

Call us at 888-692-5005 x6 today, or email us at sales@nationalwaste.com

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