Revealing Real Costs
An easy example to understand your REAL cost.
For this example, we’ll use the national average cost per month, $525.00, and assume a 6 cubic yard dumpster is picked up 3 times each week.
1) FIRST – LOCATE YOUR COST PER MONTH
Locate your dumpster’s PRICE per month on your bill. The “COST PER CUBIC YARD” is calculated from this cost. It’s usually described like this: “1 – 6 x 3”, meaning one, six-cubic-yard dumpster, picked up three times each week.
2) SECOND – LOCATE NUMBER OF PICKUPS PER WEEK
Next locate how many times per week your dumpster is supposed to be picked up.
Multiply the number of times per week by the number of weeks per month (in the example, it’s picked up 3 times per week X 4.333 weeks in a month = 13 pickups per month).
3) THIRD – CALCULATE COST PER PICK UP
Now divide the monthly price in Step 1 by the number of pickups per month from Step 2 (Ex.: $525.00 cost per month divided by 13 pick-ups per month = $40.38 per pick up).
4) LAST – CALCULATE COST PER YARD
Divide the cost per pick up (example: $40.38) by the SIZE of your dumpster (example: 6 cubic yards), this gives you the cost per cubic yard ($40.38 / 6 = $6.73) the REAL comparison number.
Now that you know your cost per cubic yard, you can compare REAL pricing with WasteWiserTM’s service information, to be sure you’re getting a fair market rate.
Real Cost vs. Real PRICE
Now, think about this. The example above ASSUMES your FULL dumpster is really picked up 13 times a month.
But what if it’s usually 75% full and only picked up 9 times a month?
You’re still pay $525.00 a month but your cost per dump jumps from $40.38 to $77.78, a 92% increase.
At 75% fullness with 9 pickups, 58.5 cubic yards are REALLY collected instead of the 78 cubic yards you contracted to have picked up.
YOUR REAL COST PER YARD goes from $6.73 to $12.96.
That works out to about $3,000.00 a year.
EVERY TIME THEY DON’T PICK UP THEIR MARGINS EXPAND AND YOU GET A PRICE INCREASE.
Remember, these figures are for just your monthly BASE COST. They don’t include: overflow fees ($150.00 each), franchise fees (10%+), taxes (5%+), junk fees, fuel fees, recycling fees, administrative fees ($5 per invoice), etc.
If you’re not monitoring your dumpster 24/7/365 HOW WILL YOU KNOW what you REALLY pay?