NYC Commercial Waste Zones: the maximum rates a hauler can charge, and how to check you're under them

What Commercial Waste Zones are

The program comes from Local Law 199 of 2019. DSNY divided the five boroughs into 20 zones, set out in 16 RCNY § 20-02. Each zone has up to three carters authorized for both curbside service and dumpsters or compactors of 10 cubic yards or more. Five more carters are authorized in all 20 zones, for dumpsters and compactors of 10 cubic yards or more only. Businesses may sign only with these awardees.

Zones go live in phases. By DSNY’s rollout schedule, eight zones were fully implemented by September 1, 2026, the latest being Midtown South and Staten Island. Brooklyn North and Upper Manhattan follow on December 1, 2026.

Where your maximum rates are written

Under 16 RCNY § 20-21, an awardee may not charge or accept rates or fees above the maximum rates and maximum fees for the zone in its agreement with DSNY. In DSNY’s template award agreement, they sit in Exhibit B, the Customer Pricing Schedule for Designated Zones. The template says they may differ by zone.

You will find them in four places:

• Your award agreement, in Exhibit B.
• The City’s Maximum Price Calculator, linked from nyc.gov/cwz. It shows the maximum monthly rates for each carter in a zone, for the services you choose, and each carter’s maximum additional fees.
• Your own website. § 20-25 requires an awardee’s website to show the maximum rates it is authorized to charge.
• Every bill. § 20-27 requires each monthly bill to show those maximums, with a statement that they are maximum legal rates and that lower rates may be charged.

DSNY says the zone maximums take effect once a zone begins to roll out and customers sign new written contracts. They are ceilings. Carters may negotiate lower, and DSNY tells businesses to negotiate below them. A business that has not signed by the end of its zone’s sign-up period is assigned a carter at the maximum allowable rate.

How a maximum is built

The rules fix the shape of every price. § 20-21(c) requires two separately itemized charges for each waste stream: refuse, recyclables and organics.

1. A charge based on how often you collect. The calculator asks for the number of pickups per week or per month.
2. A charge based on the weight or volume collected. The calculator takes the monthly amount in pounds or in cubic yards.

Beyond those two, an awardee may charge only the fees § 20-21 lists, and only when its agreement lists them too. They include container cleaning; delivering, replacing or removing containers; renting compactors or roll-off containers; a return trip or an overfilled container, after the steps in § 20-24; contamination of 10% or more in recycling or organics; customer-caused waits over 15 minutes, documented by GPS; late payment; and credit card payment, capped at 3%, when a no-fee electronic option is offered. DSNY can approve others.

Two limits stand out:

• Rentals. Local Law 199 bars rental fees for containers or dumpsters other than compactors and roll-offs.
• Recycling and organics. Their rates must be proportionally lower than refuse rates, in the proportion the agreement sets. If you collect no refuse from a customer, they may not exceed the agreement’s maximum for that material.

How the maximums change

DSNY’s template agreement adjusts the maximum rates in Exhibit B every July 1, starting July 1, 2025. Fees are not part of the automatic adjustment. The change follows a blend of four published indexes:

Each index’s change compares the last two full calendar-year averages. The City gives awardees the percentage by May 1. Changes are made in whole cents. Each customer must get at least 14 days’ written notice of a rate change. An awardee may also petition DSNY for a change at any time, under § 20-21(d).

Before a zone’s final implementation date, BIC’s citywide cap still applies there. BIC lists it as $26.87 per cubic yard of loose refuse and $17.64 per 100 pounds, effective August 31, 2024. Under 17 RCNY § 5-02(h), designated carters stop being subject to it in a zone on that zone’s final implementation date.

So check the date on the schedule you use. A maximum that was right in June can be wrong in July.

Check the bill against what you collected

A listed rate under the maximum is only half the check. The weight or volume charge is a price per unit collected. If a bill counts more units than were collected, the price per unit actually collected goes up.

This matters most for flat billing, where a customer pays the same each month for an estimated amount. DSNY’s 2025 amendments to § 20-27 set the rules:

• A flat bill must show the estimated weight or volume, how it was estimated, and the date of the most recent waste survey.
• A waste survey is due within 90 days of the first flat invoice. Every bill after that must be based on the most recent survey.
• Overpayments before the first survey, by its results, must be refunded within 60 days. Underpayments may not be billed back.
• A survey runs 30 calendar days or four consecutive collections of each stream, whichever is longer, at no cost to the customer. A customer may ask for another; two in any 12 months are free.
• Scales must be accurate to within 5%, and weight is counted net of the container.

Your weigh-ins between surveys show whether the estimate still holds.

A worked example

Every number here is made up. It is not any zone’s schedule or any real customer.

Suppose a carter’s maximums for refuse are $160.00 a month for two pickups a week, and $25.00 per cubic yard. This example converts weight to volume at 200 lb per cubic yard and counts 4.33 weeks in a month. Use whatever factor your contract or survey states.

The service is billed like this:

Both lines look fine. Now the weigh-ins:

• Average weigh-in: 254 lb per pickup.
• Pickups a month: 2 × 4.33 = 8.66.
• Weight a month: 254 × 8.66 = 2,199.6 lb.
• Volume a month: 2,199.6 ÷ 200 = 11.0 cubic yards.

The volume charge per yard actually collected:

• $572.00 ÷ 11.0 yd = $52.00 per yard, more than twice the $25.00 maximum.
• By weight, the same result: $572.00 ÷ 22.0 hundred pounds = $26.00 per 100 lb, against $12.50 (the $25.00 maximum at 200 lb per yard).

The most this carter could charge for 11.0 yd is 11.0 × $25.00 = $275.00. The bill is $297.00 a month over that, or $3,564.00 a year. At its own $22.00 rate, 11.0 yd comes to $242.00.

The test is simple: billed yards × your rate must not exceed collected yards × the maximum. Here the line is 12.5 yd ($275.00 ÷ $22.00). Bill more than 12.5 yd for 11.0 collected, and this service is over.

A monthly check, service by service

1. Use the maximums in force that month, for that zone and that carter.
2. Check the frequency charge against the maximum for that number of pickups.
3. Total each stream’s weigh-ins for the month and convert them with your stated factor.
4. Divide the weight or volume charge by that total, and compare it with the maximum per unit.
5. Check every extra fee against the § 20-21 list and your agreement.
6. Check that recycling and organics sit below refuse, in your agreement’s proportion.
7. Where a flat estimate no longer matches the weigh-ins, plan a new waste survey and bill from its result.

Where RouteNow fits

RouteNow’s CheckNow runs this check for every service. It sets each service’s charge against what its weigh-ins allow under the zone’s maximum, in dollars: over, or with room to spare. WeighNow keeps the weigh-ins it reads.