Guidelines To A “Good” Waste and Recycling Management Firm: Part 6 – Coordinated / Pre-Approved Plan

A “good” waste & recycling management firm will work “with” their client to provide a well-coordinated, pre-approved plan to most effectively manage waste & recycling. Depending on your experience, you may think this is always a standard course of action. You would be surprised by how infrequently this occurs. Why? Evidently a majority of management firms think it just takes too much effort.

Developing a well-coordinated, pre-approved plan involves getting all of the client’s resources (corporate contacts, regional managers, location managers, etc.) on the same page and in agreement with the plan that the management firm developed based on the analyzed data. Think this takes some effort? Absolutely! First of all, it takes a lot of effort on the firm’s behalf to gather months worth of the client’s waste & recycling data, analyze it, determine key client location metrics to compare the data against, identify anomalies and opportunities, and then developing the most effective plan to maximize cost reduction, recycling, environmental sustainability, etc. Then, the firm presents the plan to the client. From this point the firm should coordinate conference calls, webinars, on-site meetings, etc., with all of the client’s resources to answer questions, justify their plan, and get everyone in agreement. Does this take a lot of effort? Yes! But the benefit for the client and management firm is a long-term relationship built on trust.

On the contrary, what happens when a management firm makes decisions and plans regarding your business without your input or involvement? Think a lack of trust is the result? You bet! You may have experienced this with waste & recycling, or even with other vendors. I’m sure you remember how the experience made you feel? This is never a good experience and unfortunately occurs all too frequently. The “so-called” management firm will not want to spend the time or put forth the effort to either do the analysis or coordinate a pre-approved plan. This lack of effort and detail will usually show up in other areas of the firm’s business as well.

So, it would be a very good idea to gain an understanding of a management firm’s philosophy and approach related to coordinating a pre-approved waste & recycling plan. It would be an even better idea to do this “prior” to signing an agreement with them. A “good” firm will want to build a long-term, trusting relationship with their client. Toward that effort they will work “with” their client to develop a well-coordinate, pre-approved plan.