Waste Management Consulting Industry

The Waste Management Consulting industry was largely started in the mid-1990s.   Professionals working with national waste hauling companies saw a need and started helping businesses and corporations reduce costs by becoming Waste Management Consultants (aka Waste Broker Consultants Trash Auditors). 

SAV-ON Waste Solutions is EWS certified and 75% of Waste Expense Audits / Waste Reviews are successful in reducing costs and securing billing errors for commercial business across the United States.   25% of Trash Audits are clean (no billing errors) with fair pricing (zero savings) and SAV-ON gets paid nothing for those reviews since our fee is contingent.   A stand waste review will take 30-60 days to complete.  We generally split the savings procured with the client.  We continue to consult and review the billing during our service term, continuing to protect the pricing we secured and correcting billing errors during the service term for our clients.  Often finding more errors and occasionally even more savings.  

Basic Trash Audit Outline

1. Forensic Trash Audit—line by line forensic trash audit looking for billing errors. Spreadsheet analysis needed for fluctuating monthly fees, such as fuel, environmental, recycling credits, taxes, overage fees, tonnage weights, etc.  Many fees are attached to indexes such as the DOT’s monthly fuel index, https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/gasdiesel/ .  
2. Review service levels and equipment in use. – Better equipment, right-sizing containers, add recycling programs, reduce service levels, etc to find long-term savings.  Compactor spreadsheet analysis and peer analysis.   We give an efficiency rating to reviewed sites. 
3. Renegotiate rates/terms with hauler— We know what our other clients are paying in the area, secure below-market pricing and favorable terms.

The foundation of Waste Expense Auditing/Consulting is the actual line by line Forensic Trash Audit.  We dissect the current hauling contract (franchise markets and free markets) and find billing errors and overcharges on the client’s past invoices.   Finding these billing errors secures a refund for the client but can also help restructure a much better hauling contract long term as well.  The trash audit takes up very little of the client time.

Fee Trends- since fuel has been down for several years we have seen a surge in the environmental fees, what used to be nonexistent is now commonly 10-20% of the bill.   For some haulers the fuel+environemental fee with be 40% or higher.  Now that a Democrat has been elected President, we expect higher fuel costs nationwide (just a historical fact), this will cause even more rate increases nationally.   Other examples of newer fees are the container use fee (they now charge to swap out clean containers annually).  RCR fee is a resource recovery fee.   We see franchise fees, state tax, city tax, county tax, transfer station fees, you name.   Fort Worth, TX recently doubled their franchise fee from 5-10%.  Overage fees are on the rise nationally –since 2019.  Lock fees, dry run fees, etc.    The most common billing error secured refund is for price increases outside the contract terms.   Many contracts have limits attached to the CPI or some other variable yet we have seen pricing increase in excess of 20-100% per year for our clients.  Recycling rates in some communities have gone up by over 300% in the past 1-2 years.   China pulling out of the market has hurt many aggressive green communities that have politicians implementing mandatory recycling policies.  Mandatory Recycling never took into account there might not be anywhere to perform recycling and the commodity ends up in the local landfill.   

A Review of Services and Equipment is pretty self-explanatory.  Examples— By adding recycling of cardboard a client can reduce municipal waste and reap the other benefits of recycling.   By reviewing/auditing a compactor we recommend a different size compactor or a different brand compactor and save a client thousands of dollars each month.    An onsite volume survey reveals the dumpsters are under-serviced. 

Renegotiate Contracts   Waste Brokering Services are straight forward.  With 11 years and thousands of trash audits or “Waste Reviews” no one negotiates a better long-term hauling disposal agreement than SAV-ON Waste Solutions.   We have client testimonials declaring year over year savings of over 80%.

Waste Consulting Industry Overview

Competition is up and many cost reduction companies are trying to add 5-10 different cost reduction categories.  Cellular, gas, electric, shipping, class action lawsuits, credit cards, property taxes, tax credits, maintenance contracts, insurance, telecom, office supplies, etc.    SAV-ON Waste Solutions has decided to be the best at Trash Audit and Waste Management Consulting –only. We often provide waste consulting services for other cost reduction companies, in 2019 SAV-ON saved over $3.5 million in savings for partner companies and we welcome new partner opportunities on a regular basis.  There is no quick fix or low-hanging fruit in waste management consulting, it takes time, knowledge, and professionalism to be successful in waste management consulting.  

 

Summary of Services- SAV-ON Waste Solutions

• Forensic Audit every line item, invoice or SKU for hauler compliance.  Audit includes verification of rate increases; surcharges; CPI adherence; DOE monthly regional fuel indexes; recycling indexes; state/local taxes, environmental fees; admin charges; recovery fees; excess disposal; container use fees, and others.
• Review your current operations.  If the client wishes, we will assess equipment/services to develop an in-depth understanding of your unique service needs.  We offer on-site surveys and our proprietary spreadsheet analysis for clients who have volume and efficiency concerns.

• Identify opportunities to reduce costs by applying our knowledge of the latest technologies, transportation systems, container alternatives, frequency control, disposal alternatives, commodity pricing for any recycling materials, and negotiating more feasible profit levels for the hauling companies.
• 2020 Platform, This EWS Platform is a database of all our vendors and discounts that we are able to extend to our customers based on our relationships.  20,000 successful audits/clients offer valuable knowledge and buying leverage.
• Present recommendations and an estimate of savings/refunds for approval.  Your Division will fully understand and approve recommendations presented by our organization.
• Implement the plan and secure refund/s and savings.  We fully implement the recommendations once approved.
• Monitor the plan.  For the length of the agreement, we monitor/audit the operations of the implemented waste management plan, ensuring that standards are maintained, errors and overcharges are identified and corrected, and that the expected savings are being achieved.
• Provide monthly reports showing continuing results.  Each month, we provide a detailed report showing the actual savings being achieved as a result of SAV-ON services.

SAV-ON has detailed knowledge of varied waste streams for clients including food waste, landscape waste, medical waste, paper waste, metal scrap, wood scrap, special waste streams, bio-hazardous waste streams, liquid waste, manufacturing waste, and of course, standard municipal trash.

SAV-ON is an independent waste management consulting firm and we do not own any interest in any hauling companies nor landfills, nor do we stand to profit by directing hauling or recycling business to any particular company.  This is an important fact because true independent advice can only come from companies unencumbered by such relationships. 

SAV-ON only gets compensated if we procure refunds and savings for our much-appreciated clients.