Waste-hauling costs are increasing and recycling policies are becoming stricter. Apartment operators are seeing the effects and are taking a variety of steps to improve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. In Part 5 of this 13-part, in-depth report, we discuss how to handle bulk items, cardboard and maintaining Dumpster areas.

There are ways to turn residents’ bad behavior into revenue – just a little bit.

Bulk trash pick-up brings its own set of challenges and headaches.

“With skips and evictions and items that residents just leave behind when they move out, there are plenty of large items that must be disposed,” Camden’s Rick Pippin says. “You can use a 1-800-GOT-TRASH-type of service, which generally charge $10 per item or price items a la carte. In other markets, bulk haulers want $25 per item and will only come if there are 10 items to pick up. Our space is valuable. Having a lot of large trash sitting around is not convenient. My plan is to write in a fixed rate of $10 to $12 per item into the contract.”

LumaCorp’s Ian Mattingly says residents’ furniture disposal has required it to build enclosures at several properties just to hold bulky items so they don’t pose an eyesore ahead of its monthly large-waste item removals.

Apartment Dynamics’ Tom Gwyn says, “Sadly, we battle a lot of non-resident dumping and end up with large bulky items left in our bins. With video, we can see who left them, but we still have to clean the area.”

Cardboard is recognized as the most valuable recyclable material in the open market, Lisa Kardell, Manager, Waste Management, says. This becomes even more attractive when considering that many localities are losing money on their recycling programs. Waste Management’s Richard Bates says in some markets, haulers that once made $6 per ton on recyclables are now paying $125 per ton to have that material processed and recycled.

AvalonBay is trying to earn ancillary income by selling baled used cardboard at its Avalon First and M community in Washington, D.C. It is one of 10+ AVB communities where it uses a cardboard baler to separate, bind and sell the material.

The 469-unit community assembles two to three bales every two weeks for pick-up by a local recycling company. The company earns around $10 per ton after processing charges and avoids paying traditional recycling pickup charges. AvalonBay continues to drive utilization to optimize any revenue that could come from this cardboard resale effort.

Just how competitive is the cardboard market, Bates says he’s heard of communities in New York and Connecticut putting their bales out for collection only to have them stolen.

Prometheus’ Mary Nitschke says her hauler prohibits her company from cashing-in on its cardboard. “Our haulers mandate that anything thrown in their Dumpsters belongs to them and it is illegal to remove any cardboard from these containers because this is their revenue stream,” she says.

Bozzuto also has focused on recyclable materials such as textiles, held electronic-waste drives and food donation collection programs to increase its landfill diversion percentage, but not to drive revenue, Peter Zadoretzky says.

Bell Partners’ Ashley Cook says the increase in e-commerce has led to more cardboard boxes being delivered to residents, which can become problematic. “Residents don’t often break-down their boxes,” he says. “These boxes in our trash containers fill them inefficiently by taking up extra space. When boxes aren’t made flat, the container might seem full, when it is not. This can lead to extra, unnecessary pick-up charges, especially if the bulky boxes lead to containers that don’t meet a hauler’s minimum weight requirement. Maintenance teams help with breaking down the boxes by monitoring the containers, but that’s not their job.”

Separation of waste materials at the community is a more effective method for companies that do not choose (or are not required) to participate in single-stream systems.

“With the rising costs in recycling services, many communities have discontinued their single-stream recycling services and have opted to have dedicated containers for specific recycling items,” Donald Campbell, Cass Information Systems, Waste Expense Managment team, says. “This is especially true for cardboard. Cardboard Dumpsters are configured with small slots that make it more difficult to put other items in the container.

“While it was once true that rebates were available for this type of disposal, with all the drastic changes in the recycling market, it is much less common for this service to provide any ancillary income. However, dedicated cardboard recycling is typically much less expensive than single-stream.”

Unkept waste management areas at communities is a big gripe among onsite staff, especially when such sloppiness can be seen during leasing tours.

“Trash areas can become disgusting fast. It is sort of like graffiti tagging: Once you have a ‘tag,’ everything descends to a state of awful fairly quickly,” Prometheus’ Nitschke says. “Daily examination really helps manage the problem.”

“Residents expect our properties to be clean and daily maintenance is a big part of that,” Pinnacle’s van Beveren says. “Our team is always exploring ways to reduce the time and resource requirements needed to manage waste disposal areas. For example, we have implemented programs in Washington and California with Wastexperts, which has greatly reduced our reliance onsite teams to manage the Dumpster areas.”

AvalonBay, too, has started a pilot program with WasteExperts, a contractor who essentially hand-picks recycling out of the containers to remove it from the waste stream.

Prometheus is piloting waste-sorting contractors TrashLogic and Federal International. TrashLogic is Bay Area-based only and is “excellent at sorting and their services more robust than Wastexperts, which is critical for operators in areas such as the City of Sunnyvale,” Nitschke says.

“Federal International is nationally based. Historically a trash contract manager and third-party service provider, Nitschke says recently it chose to enter the sorting market, “which is where this industry is heading.”

Back to the Trash Talking in-depth report or read the part 6 story: Valet Trash Can Bring Efficiency to Sorting, Hauling.