What weigh-ins tell a waste hauler: usual weights, odd pickups, and who isn't being weighed

Why routine weigh-ins matter

Most commercial trash is billed by the container and the number of pickups. The weight behind that bill is an estimate, and it often goes unchecked for years. Weigh-ins turn the estimate into a record. There are three reasons a hauler keeps them.

Billing by weight

Some customers are billed by the pound or the ton. Then each weigh-in is part of the bill, and a wrong one is a wrong invoice. Weight billing takes more than a scale. EPA’s guidance on pay-as-you-throw programs notes that it needs special equipment, such as truck-mounted scales, and a way to record each customer’s weight for billing. Most of those programs bill by volume instead.

Checking billed volume

A customer billed for a 4-yard container picked up twice a week is billed for a volume. Whether that volume matches what they set out is a question weigh-ins can answer.

Weight and volume are tied together by density, and density varies a lot. EPA’s volume-to-weight table lists uncompacted commercial dry waste at 56 to 73 pounds per cubic yard, uncompacted commercial waste overall at 138, and mixed municipal solid waste at 250 to 300 pounds uncompacted and 400 to 700 compacted. No single factor is right for every customer. Pick one, use it the same way across the whole book, and services become comparable with each other even where the factor is rough.

Surveys

Where a customer pays a flat rate, a survey is the proof behind it: a stretch of measured pickups that sets the quantity billed. Some places require one.

In New York City’s Commercial Waste Zones, a zone hauler billing a flat rate must survey the customer within 180 days of the first flat invoice. The survey measures the average amount collected, by volume or by weight, for each waste stream, over 30 calendar days or four consecutive collections, whichever is longer. Weighing devices must be accurate to within five percent, and the weight is taken net of the container. Each flat invoice states the estimated volume or weight by stream, how it was estimated, and the date of the latest survey. (This is general information, not legal advice. Read the current rule.)

Routine weigh-ins do not replace a survey. But a hauler that already weighs has the history to plan one, and can see which services have drifted away from what they are billed.

Compare each weigh-in with that service’s own usual

The useful comparison is not against other customers. A restaurant and an office with the same container fill it with very different weights. Compare each weigh-in with the same service’s own average.

Two simple checks catch most of what matters:

• Twice its usual: two or more times the service’s own average.
• Under half its usual: less than half the service’s own average.

A usual needs a few weigh-ins behind it. An average built on one or two is not a usual, so hold the checks until a service has at least three. Keep extra pickups out of the average too. An extra is a different pickup, not a heavy day of the regular one.

What an odd weigh-in usually means

• A double pickup. A missed stop, a blocked container or a holiday shift, and the next pickup carries two loads. A heavy weigh-in the day after a skip is the classic case.
• An extra. The customer asked for an extra pickup or set out more than usual. Record it as an extra, so it stays out of the usual and can be billed if your terms allow.
• A keying slip. 4,000 typed as 40,000. Tons entered as pounds. The right weight on the wrong account. Under half its usual can be a slip as easily as a light week. Knowing who recorded each weigh-in makes the question quick to ask while the day is still fresh.
• A real change. A customer who is heavier every week now, not once. The bill, the container or the schedule may need to change.

One odd weigh-in is a question. A run of them is a change. Looking at a service’s year of weigh-ins as a line, with its usual marked, shows which you have: a single spike, or a slow climb.

Weigh-ins on days the service isn’t scheduled

A weigh-in on a weekday the service is not scheduled is worth a look. Usually it is one of three things:

• An extra pickup that should be on record as one, and may be billable.
• A route that ran on a different day, after a holiday or a breakdown.
• A weigh-in entered against the wrong service or the wrong date.

Each is cheap to fix in the same week. Found at the end of a quarter, when someone is reconciling bills, each one costs far more time.

Coverage: who is never weighed

Odd weigh-ins are half the picture. The bigger gap is the services nobody weighs at all. Weighing tends to follow habit: the same routes, the same drivers, the same streams. Over a few months, that leaves whole parts of the book with nothing behind the bill.

Check coverage two ways.

By route. For each route, count the services scheduled, how many were weighed in the period, and how many have never been weighed. Then list the services not weighed, each with when it last was. A route where most services go unweighed points to a habit, a driver or a missing scale, not to a set of customers.

By stream. Do the same for trash, recycling and organics. A stream that is never weighed is a stream where the bill rests on nothing measured. Recyclables vary in weight per yard as much as trash does. EPA’s table runs from about 30 to over 260 pounds per cubic yard for different commingled recyclable mixes, so a guess there is no safer than a guess on trash.

Vary the days, too. A service weighed only on Mondays tells you about Mondays.

The goal is not to weigh everything. It is to make sure every service, on every route, in every stream, is weighed some of the time, and to know which ones are not.

WeighNow, for any hauler that weighs

RouteNow’s WeighNow does this for any hauler that weighs, not New York’s alone. Every weigh-in sits under the day and the route that picked it up, with who keyed it. Each one is set against its service’s own usual, and twice its usual, under half, not its day and extra pickups each stand out. The summary shows every route and stream, how many services were weighed, and which never were. Click a weigh-in to see its service’s year of weigh-ins as a line. For New York haulers, CheckNow sets each service’s charge beside what its weigh-ins allow under the zone’s maximum rate.