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Part 4 of 7 · Waste collection verifier series ~6 min read

How a contamination charge gets challenged

Contamination charges are the largest variable line on most recycling contracts and the least examined, because the implication is that it was your fault and nobody enjoys arguing about that.

Key takeaways

  • Ask for photograph, weight and timestamp. Politely, every time.
  • Challenge windows are short and they bind you, not them.
  • Some charges are for other people’s bins. It happens more than you would think.
  • A recurring charge is an operational problem, not a billing one.
  • Track the rate, not the incidents. The rate is what changes.

What the charge is

A recycling load that contains the wrong material is worth less or nothing, and may have to be re-sorted or sent to general waste at a higher disposal cost. The surcharge is real and it is usually permitted by the contract.

It is also applied by a driver or a sorting facility making a rapid judgement, sometimes about a bin that is not clearly yours, and recorded in a system you cannot see. All three of those are reasons to ask rather than reasons to be suspicious.

The three things to ask for

How a contamination charge is challenged with evidenceA vertical chain of four steps entered by a box labelled Contamination charge, eighty-five pounds on the invoice. Step one, The photograph of the load at the point of collection. Step two, The timestamp and which collection, with a side box for cross-checking your own morning record. Step three, The weight and the disposal route used. Step four, One of three answers: valid, wrong bin, or nothing. A note says asking is not an accusation, it is what a customer with a rate card does every month.AWS ACCOUNTContamination charge£85 on the invoiceThe photographof the load,at the point ofThe timestampand which collectionCross-checkyour own morningrecordThe weightand the disposalroute usedOne of three answersvalid, wrong bin,or nothingAsking is not an accusation. It is what a customer with a rate card does every month.
Fig 1. The challenge, top to bottom. Most of its value is in the side box: your own record of that morning either supports the charge or contradicts it.
  • App integration
  • Machine learning
  • Management
  • Analytics
  • Front-end & mobile

The wrong-bin case

Shared bin stores, unlocked yards and neighbouring businesses produce a steady trickle of charges that belong to somebody else. The contractor is not being dishonest; the driver recorded a contaminated bin at an address, and the address has four tenants.

Your own morning record is what resolves it. A photograph of your bin at seven, clean, on the day of a collection charged as contaminated at eleven, is a complete answer and it took four seconds to create.

The window binds you

The practical timetable of a challenge

  • The charge appears on an invoice, typically for a collection three to six weeks earlier.
  • The challenge window is usually fourteen or thirty days from the invoice date, and it is in the contract rather than on the invoice.
  • Evidence retention at the contractor’s end is often ninety days, so a challenge raised four months later cannot be answered even in good faith.
  • Which means the invoice has to be read on arrival, not when somebody has time, and that is the whole argument for automating the comparison.
  • And a challenge should be one email, with the invoice line, the date, the photograph and a specific question.

Almost every failed challenge fails on timing rather than on merit. An invoice that sits in an approvals queue for five weeks and then gets paid has closed its own window, and no amount of being right afterwards reopens it.

When the charge is fair

Three patterns of recurring contamination charges and their fixesThree boxes stacked on the left. One-off, a bag in the wrong bin, labelled accept it. Recurring on one bin, always the same container, labelled signage and position. And Recurring on one shift, always the same day of the week, labelled training. All three converge on The fix is operational rather than commercial, which leads down to Charges stop within two months. A note says a charge you keep paying and challenging is a process problem wearing an invoice.One-offa bag in thewrong binaccept itRecurring, one binalways the samecontainersignage, positionRecurring, one shiftalways the sameday of the weektrainingThe fix is operationalnot commercialCharges stopwithin two monthsA charge you keep paying and challenging is a process problem wearing an invoice.
Fig 2. Three patterns behind contamination charges. Only the first one is genuinely random, and the other two are fixed inside the building rather than on the phone.
  • Machine learning
  • Management
  • People

The day-of-week pattern

The most useful thing this system produces about contamination is not the challenge, it is the pattern. Charges clustering on Tuesdays, or on one container, is information that no single invoice contains and that only exists because somebody kept the dates.

That pattern usually points at one shift, one new starter, or one bin positioned next to a door where people put things down. All three are fixed in an afternoon and none of them are visible from the invoice.

Track the rate

The number worth reporting is the proportion of collections that attract a charge, not the count. A count goes up when you grow, which makes an improving situation look like a worsening one and eventually makes everybody stop looking at it.

Next: what the bins have been telling you all along.

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