The Importance of Proactively Evaluating Your Waste Service Contract Before It Auto-Renews

By Carmine Esposito, National Waste Associates

It might seem like a good idea to let your waste contract auto-renew unexamined. But there are serious advantages in store for companies that evaluate the core contract line items before getting locked into another contract term. If your company’s goals are to ensure the lowest possible waste costs and optimized services, make a plan to check that you’re getting what you need from your supplier. Here are the benefits of having a “trust but verify” approach before permitting waste contracts to auto-renew.

Examine if your waste provider is satisfying their current contract
Many contracts will include a poor performance clause. Before your contract auto-renews, ensure your team has the expertise and time needed to hold your waste service provider accountable. Is your current provider conducting quarterly conference calls and annual business reviews to go over performance metrics, cost avoidance, waste diversion, and opportunities for saving?

Look for red flags of performance, previous complaints, or documented difficulties in correcting any waste issues that may have arisen. To analyze how well your current waste provider is doing, layout the key performance metrics in your contract and examine if they’re in line with actual performance and expectations.

Address if price creep occurred before auto-renew
Four out of every five waste disposal service bills we come across contain unnecessary fees, overcharges, overservicing, as well as other errors. Before signing a new contract, you want to make sure your waste provider or consultant has provided you with quarterly conference calls that discuss waste cost solutions and justify any increases.

If you’re unsure whether price creep was justified, consult with a third-party professional whose motivation is your company’s best interest and not over-servicing and overcharging.

When faced with mediocre providers – it’s time to shop competitors

While it’s easy to overlook competitors when you’re under contract, before your company’s auto-renewal kicks in, it’s the ideal time to shop around and see what other potential vendors are offering new services.

Shop around for vendors that can offer:

Customer centric comprehensive waste audit process
High-value waste reporting
Development, support, and management of sustainability initiatives and waste diversion programs
New and improved waste optimization measures
Overpay prevention
Lower waste bills
Waste diversion opportunities
Access to an extensive network of independent waste haulers
Improved waste processes and equipment
Proof of strong purchasing power
Negotiating power and culture to fight for every dollar

Evaluate each site for compliance
Did your current waste service provider address compliance at each location during their contract term? Waste consultants need to help you to be compliant, limiting the myriad of liabilities and risks of mishandling waste. This should include the commitment to proactively apply for waivers on your behalf (where applicable). It’s important to make sure your waste provider keeps each location up to date with local, state, and federal regulations. Now is the time to investigate how well your waste service provider ensures compliance before entering into a new contract term.

Are you receiving a variety of useful metrics and environmental reporting?
There are many opportunities to strategize and optimize waste streams. But it would help if you had reliable metrics that included both higher scope and site-by-site data insights. Commodifying waste streams is now vital for commercial and industrial enterprise profit models. Your waste management company should provide you with the latest data insights, environmental reporting to identify where waste diversion opportunities exist in your supply chain. This reporting should be standard, easy to access, and useful enough to execute new measures based on the data.

Now is the time to determine if you’re receiving helpful KPI reports, market tracking, performance gap analyses, lead measures, and environmental reports to improve efficiency, drive sustainability (i.e., ESG), and control and even decrease costs. Having data-backed knowledge and active managing industry experts alongside to help break it down guarantees the best decisions will be made for your company into the future.

Evaluate if your waste partner fits into the company’s future ESG goals
Company Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) reporting is quickly becoming a standard. Whether your company has established metric goals now or later, investors are increasingly requiring ESG metric proof before investing. One report showed that ESG metric proof directly correlated with a company’s amount in investment funds.

Company ESG reporting on sustainable initiatives and environmental metrics is becoming increasingly valuable. Waste is a complicated and growing part of ESG goals. Make sure your waste service provider is equipped to walk into the future of sustainability with your team. Most large national waste service providers profit from loading landfills – this won’t fly in the future of verifiable reporting. Evaluate the profit motives of your waste vendor to predict if they will be a good fit moving into the future of waste optimization and ESG goals.

Identify if you’re getting enough dedicated service or if you spend more time with phone banks
Do you have a dedicated manager that handles all your calls? Does the same person know your facilities, business, and the nuances of your waste needs? You want a partner you can call who knows how to help you effectively. Anytime you need to speak to your waste provider, you want to be guaranteed your call will not be in a queue to talk to someone who is unaware of your account.

It is extremely important to have a dedicated Account Manager that provides your company with:

Diligent customer service and follow-up
Warnings before a problem might arise
Knowledgeable staff that knows your business/locations needs
Rapid response to immediately address your needs
Process Optimization & Management
Mitigation to service interruptions
Successful meeting of deadlines
Returned calls on the same day
Onboarding new locations with ease and excellence
Shares industry best practices or important industry updates

Address if your C&I business is getting enough waste monetization services and leadership on new waste programs
Before your next contract renews, find out if your service provider owns any landfills. If they do, you may not be seeing the advantages that C&I waste monetization efforts can bring to your bottom line. The future is about waste optimization. You’ll want to have a leader on your side regarding waste stream monetization because they’ll have the extensive network necessary to execute the best waste strategy. When you need new or improved recycling programs put in place, ideally, you’ll want an expert that doesn’t own landfills, to remove the conflict of interest.

Our advice before your next waste contract auto-renews with a subpar vendor:

Examine your contract well before the auto-renew date kicks in.
Use the points above to evaluate if you’re getting all you need from your provider.
Explore your options – get a proposal from other vendors to where you can improve services and lower costs over the long run.
The NWA difference
Let our team at National Waste Associates (NWA) deliver real-world, minimum triple bid, fully vetted solutions to get you the best mix of local service providers. We have carefully selected over 3,500 certified haulers who will work within NWA’s pricing model to accentuate the benefits to our clients. Our process is client centric; we make haulers earn your business.

Would you like our experts to evaluate your contract(s) before it auto-renews?
Leverage the NWA difference and get the best strategies and cost savings for your organization’s waste management operations.
Call us at 1-888-692-5005 x6 today,
email us at sales@nationalwaste.com

Back to Insights