Ask waste-management professionals to list their biggest headaches, and a common theme is likely to emerge: inefficiency.
As refuse-pickup technology evolves, old standards of business are becoming more archaic. Chief among the outdated non-practices: Tracking trash routes. Gone are the days when you could send a fleet out without regard to tracking data.
Here are three of the top risks waste-management entities take if they do not track their trash routes — along with some of the leading solutions for streamlining the process:
1. You won’t know where you’ve been — and where you’ve missed.
Untracked routes leave open opportunities to miss pickup locations. Hard data can reveal every stop, either via GPS or truck arm activation. This becomes crucial in the event a customer asserts his or her trash wasn’t serviced.
To send a truck to a single location for collection can be costly, in both fuel expenses and man-hours. The ability to pinpoint when a truck was at the house can add clarity to the customer’s service. It can also discourage them from calling in such a manner when they didn’t get their trash out in time.
2. You’ll miss opportunities to improve efficiencies.
Tracked routes and acquired data are especially important if you’re able to analyze them. Changing customer footprints and traffic patterns could justify adjustments to your route. Without breaking down data from route tracking, you might not be aware of spots that could use improvement.
Betterment of efficiency saves on fuel, man-hours and maintenance costs. Implementing routes to cover out-of-order vehicles or unforeseen circumstances helps mitigate unexpected changes.
3. You’ll miss out on the chance for drivers to contribute.
Who better to see the field than your drivers? Route-tracking systems give them the power to report missing or damaged carts. This proactive approach can help identify needs for attention before clients are even aware of them.
ContainerPros and Toter: Your partners for boosting trash-collection efficiency
Looking for ways to ensure that your waste-management business seizes all of the opportunities outlined above … and more? The answer lies in waste-industry logistics — a critical category in which ContainerPros, a Wastequip company boasting high levels of expertise in route mapping and logistics, can offer significant help.
Providing an array of specialized professional waste management services, including multiple cart programs, consulting, marketing and sales, and customer management, ContainerPros can help you boost trash-route efficiency with solutions such as:
- Specialized programs that augment and solidify expertise in bin assembly and distribution
- Professional services that aid in the removal and recycling of carts, bins and receptacles
- Tailored route-audit programs that can help you verify a broad range of route and customer-service data, including:
- customers serviced, and non-customers receiving service
- customers with extra garbage and/or overfilled containers
- Equipment optimization
- Bin or cart size, quantity, and condition
- pickup days
- Service codes
- Standardized addresses
- Billing and rate accuracy
- And much more
To add even more efficiency and sustainability to your waste-management business’s operations, you can choose to use eco-friendly carts from another Wastequip company, Toter. An industry leader in waste container and dumpster manufacturing, Toter has perfected the manufacturing process to create the most durable products on the market. Its carts and bins are efficient, recyclable and have the industry’s longest service life — so by using them, you’ll get the most out of every container. The company also delivers a broad range of products that aid with collection along the stream, from office containers to rugged dumpster bins.
Turn to Wastequip for the most comprehensive solutions
For a system customized to your specific needs, look to Wastequip, your all-in-one waste equipment and services resource. With brands serving nearly every segment of the waste industry’s value chain — from carts and containers to compactors, trucks, parts, services and technology — Wastequip can provide best-in-class equipment, customizable logistics, a cloud-based tracking program and more. Its services keep containers functional, trucks efficient and routes in tip-top shape for the job, all with a single point of contact to guide you through any and all questions related to its brands’ equipment, parts, services and technology solutions.