This overview of waste management contracts is intended to provide business owners with background information that will be useful in exploring opportunities to reduce waste management costs through source separation of food scraps, and renegotiating waste contracts to reflect these savings. This document will help you examine how source separation impacts the cost of waste disposal, and therefore, what savings you can reasonably expect to see by renegotiating your waste management contract.
Your trash bill will generally reflect one figure – the amount of money you are billed for your waste disposal service. However, this figure is comprised of three fees – container rental fees, collection and hauling fees, and tipping fees. Food scraps are a relatively heavy material and commonly represent the heaviest portion of a business’ waste. Since foods scraps are generally not bulky, source separating food scraps is likely to reduce the overall weight of your trash, while having smaller impacts on the volume. Changes in waste volume may be substantial for a large generator, but may not be detectable for a smaller business. While your waste hauler’s services tend to be volume-oriented, such as your dumpster size or how often the dumpster is emptied, the fees your hauler pays to the landfill for disposal, “tipping fees,” are figured by weight. Most commonly, it is through a reduction in weight that you will realize savings in your tipping fees, and thus a reduction in your overall trash bill. The various parts of your trash bill are explained in greater detail below to assist you in navigating the contract renegotiation process. Additionally, each section is broken into a second part, which outlines how composting program fees factor into each of these costs.
Container Fee
Trash
If you do not own your own dumpster, you pay a monthly or annual rental fee to the hauling company for the use of your dumpster. This fee is based on the size of the container. If you are a large business and will be diverting large amounts of food scraps, you may be able to reduce the volume of your trash and therefore rent a smaller container. However, for small and mid-size generators, container fees may not be impacted by source separation.Composting
Through the Northern Vermont Composting Partnership (NVCP) rugged 48-gallon totes with sturdy wheels and lids will be provided to you free of charge for food scrap collection and storage. Additionally, free 4 gallon buckets labeled for compost will be provided for transportation of food scraps from the kitchen to totes if the totes do not fit in your work space.
Hauling and Collection Fees
Trash
Haulers develop their hauling and collection fees differently. However, the cost of these services is generally dependant on the frequency of collection and the size of the container being hauled. While these fees are generally driven by volume and associated time, the removal of compostable materials from your trash may enable you to reduce the frequency of collection. These savings are generally realized by larger generators whose volume reduction is more significant and whose volume of food scraps in a dumpster presents the greatest potential for creating odor issues.
Composting
Through the NVCP your business will receive hauling and collection services for source separated food scraps. For the first three months of participation these services will be provided free of charge to enable you to renegotiate your trash contract in a cost neutral environment. Once you begin to incur hauling and collection fees, you will be charged a $5.00 stop fee and $2.00 per tote collected. For example, if a business had 3 totes during one pick-up, they would be charged $11.00. Collections will occur weekly unless otherwise noted. These fees cover the cost of operating the hauling and collection program.
Tipping Fees
Trash
Tipping fees are the fees paid by your hauler to the landfill in order to dump, or “tip,” trash at the landfill. These fees are based on the weight of the material being dumped and are calculated by the ton. In addition to the actual tipping fee charge by the landfill, a state tax and a district surcharge are tacked on as well. In your waste district, tipping fees paid to the landfill are commonly around $80 per ton. The state tax and District surcharge levied per ton are $6 and $19.25 respectively. In total, tipping fees are roughly $108 per ton. By source separating food scraps you are most likely to realize savings by source separating food scraps through reduced tipping fees. Tipping fees may vary by hauler.
Composting
Through the NVCP your tipping fees will be subsidized for the first three months of program participation. After this time you will be charged a tipping fee of $30 per ton of food scraps diverted. These fees are paid directly to the local composter receiving your food scraps to cover the associated costs of composting them. No state tax or district surcharge is paid on materials being composted.
Example
For example, if you source separate 10 tons of food scraps per year (a small-mid size generator), you would save $1,080 in tipping fees at the landfill ($108/ ton). You might also be able to reduce either the frequency of your collection or the size of your dumpster, but as a conservative estimate we will assume you can not. For 10 tons of food scraps per year, you would be generating roughly 385 pounds of scraps per week, just shy of two totes. Your weekly collection and hauling fees would amount to $9 and your weekly tipping fees would amount to $6.70. Your total weekly costs would equal $15.70. Over the year you would pay $350.35 for your composting services while reducing your annual trash costs by $1,080, for an overall savings of $729.65. Additionally, a value that cannot be quantified in this equation is the public perception and recognition of your business in this program. As a participant your business will receive a variety of promotional programs, such as “WE COMPOST!” window stickers, recognition in local newspapers through ads and press releases, certificates of participation and more. These efforts to share the measures you are taking to be a responsible local business pay off – customers care whether you care.
In an effort to support businesses like yours that are trying to reduce waste and recover resources, your solid waste district is available to assist you in understanding and renegotiating your trash contract. Additionally, the district maintains a list of registered haulers that service your area that you can use in pricing out various waste management packages that best reflects the savings you should expect to see through participation in the Northern Vermont Composting Partnership.
The Northern Vermont Composting Partnership is a project of the Highfields Institute, Central Vermont Solid Waste Management District, Northeast Kingdom Waste Management District, and the Town of Greensboro.
For more information, please call 472-5138
or email june@highfieldsinstitute.org
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