Is a PAYT (Pay As You Throw) program in your future?

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A Pay As You Throw (PAYT) program has been a topic that has come and gone and come back in the world of residential waste service.  The system is fairly simple, where a customer purchases bags at a per bag price from their hauler, or has a choice of cart size varying in price based on the cart size.  The idea is that your waste disposal cost is relative to the amount of waste you need to be disposed of.

In my history, we used this type of system to cater to senior citizens who did not generate high volumes of trash.  This was also a popular program in rural areas where residents are more likely to burn their trash.  Later, as recycling became popular, PAYT became an incentive to divert materials from more expensive disposal into “cheaper” recycling.  Unfortunately in most areas, those economics don’t work any longer, unless there is some subsidy or other market influencer making recycling cheaper.

When we’ve done the PAYT by-the-bag program, we called them Budget Bags.  We first used bags, then switched to tags (Budget Tags) so we could eliminate the inventory problem and be able to mail tags to customers. We charged $3.50 per tag in sets of 10, plus a $3.50 mailing fee. We sent them guaranteed delivery so people could not claim they did not receive them. We only provided this service if we were already passing your house.

While this list is not exhaustive, here are some props and cons to having a PAYT system:

PROS:
• Nice market niche. Provided a nice “PAYT” (Pay As You Throw”) alternative, which got us points with local government, helped encourage recycling and a way to differentiate from our competitors.
• Popular with senior citizens.
• Little investment.
• Worked well with serious recyclers.
• Cash up front.

CONS:
• Required hand loading. We were working on modifying this service on routes we were converting to ASL.
• Some customers abused the weight limit.
• Unless you charged a “route fee”, it did not cover your fixed costs. This is why we only provide this service to customers we were passing already. We considered it “gravy”.
• Customers were willing to pay more for this service, and not have a cart.

 

Have questions about PAYT?  Feel free to contact me, I’d be happy to help!