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Finding the right commercial trash service can be a nightmare. With roughly 19,980 waste collection companies in the US alone, you’re spoiled for choice.
How can you tell how reliable they are? What are the most important aspects of a good commercial trash service?
How do you know that you’re choosing the right one?
That’s what this article will teach you. Drawing from our team’s 25+ years of experience in waste management, we’ll show you exactly how to pinpoint what the best trash service in your area is (without the confusion).
We’ll cover:
Let’s get started.
Every commercial trash service needs the basics:
Front load dumpsters are best used for general waste, such as non-compostable food (in small amounts), general landfill waste, small construction debris, paper and cardboard, and even smaller pieces of plastic or metallic waste. Just make sure that your dumpster can close to fully contain whatever you put in to avoid the risk of nasty (or even harmful) odors or loose trash escaping.
Do not mix different types of trash in the same dumpster!
Each unit should be limited to one type of trash so that whatever commercial trash service collects it can dispose of everything effectively without the risk of cross-contamination. That way all recyclables can be processed and reused while you also reduce the amount of landfill you create. For more information, check out our guide to front load dumpster waste types and our front load dumpster size guide.
Roll-off dumpsters are a heavier-duty option for when you have too much waste to put in a front load unit, or for waste that’s too large to be fully contained by one. These are great for construction debris, bulky packaging waste, and excess amounts of recyclable materials such as wood and (where applicable) plastic.
You also need to make sure that your roll-off dumpsters aren’t exposed to the elements to protect your waste until it’s disposed of. The same rule of not mixing waste types should also be applied here. For more information, check out our roll-off dumpster size guide.
Another must-have part of any decent commercial trash service is regular collections. Ideally, they should offer same-day services and regular, reliable collection dates that suit your waste production flow.
If you don’t already know what your waste production flow is, here’s how to work it out.
Start by measuring the amount (and types) of waste your business produces over a set amount of time. This could be just a week, but the longer the better to get an accurate view. For example, let’s say that you’ve been monitoring trash production for three months, and you roughly produce 500lbs of landfill waste, 100lbs of paper and cardboard, and 200lbs of recyclable plastic per week.
Next, compare those amounts to the capacity of your dumpsters. Let’s say that you have three front load dumpsters, two of which are 2-yard (400lbs) and one is a 4-yard (800lbs). With your waste production figures you can see that the landfill waste can go in your 4-yard dumpster, with the two types of recyclables getting a 2-yard unit each.
If, like in our example, your dumpsters can cope with production, you should be safe with a weekly garbage collection. This prevents biodegradable waste from rotting to the point where it poses a health hazard, but saves you money by avoiding unnecessary collections.
But there is an exception.
If your business produces a lot of food waste, or things that shouldn’t be left on-site for more than a day or two, you should consider getting more frequent collections. For example, restaurants tend to have garbage collected every 1-3 days due to their waste output and cleanliness requirements.
After checking that a commercial trash service offers the basics, one of the best ways to tell the best from the rest is to look into their customer reviews. The easiest way to do this is to search the company’s name and check the user-submitted Google reviews or those on sites like Birdeye, Wheree, and Yelp.
We’d advise checking several different review sites to make sure that you don’t miss any information!
Customer reviews are great for getting a general sense of how good and reliable a commercial trash service is, and can highlight recurring issues their customers have faced when using them. No business is perfect, but seeing several people complaining about missed collections is probably a good reason to look elsewhere.
We all have a duty to look after our community, the local environment, and to do our part for the global environment. That’s why checking a trash service’s stance on sustainability and the local environment is absolutely vital.
These are the people who you’re tasking with responsibly disposing of all of your waste. Any effort you’ve made to organize trash into types and keep recyclables separate could be for nothing if the collection service throws it all into landfill anyway.
Plus, if your commercial trash service is lax enough to not have these kinds of commitments, it’s not a great sign that they’ll be reliable in their regular duties either. You need to be careful and thorough when choosing a service so that you don’t get surprised with missing trash collections or penalties from local authorities for your trash being incorrectly processed. That’s not even mentioning the dangers (and fines) involved with items that require certificates of destruction - “unreliable” is not the word you want to associate with when it comes to that kind of waste.
The point is, a waste company that cares about the environment is one that you can trust to have the same care and professionalism when dealing with their customers.
By now you should have a good idea of who the frontrunners are in your search for the best local commercial trash service. The final way to tell the best from the rest is to see what these companies offer aside from the basics.
Trash compactors are incredibly useful for larger operations or for those that naturally generate a lot of crushable waste. If a service offers these, it’s a good sign that they’re being trusted by larger companies, which is another point in their favor.
Competitive pricing is an obvious requirement, but another great bonus is same-day service. This will save you time and money when setting up your waste management operations, meaning that you can focus more on running your actual business.
If you’re looking for the best commercial trash service in Laredo or the wider Texas area, we have an extra tip just for you. Your one-stop shop needs to be our team here at Trashco Inc.!
For more than 25 years we’ve been spearheading the charge to keep Laredo’s streets clean, businesses trash-free, and even help out with community projects and fundraisers to go above and beyond.
We’re dedicated to providing high-quality and affordable waste management services that you can rely on. As Texas’ best commercial trash service, we aren’t satisfied if we’re not collecting waste on time, every time.
What are you waiting for?
Click here to speak to the Trashco Inc. team today!
