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Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) can be challenging for multifamily. Solar retrofits can take years. Water-efficiency upgrades require capital. Emissions reporting requires new software. However, there’s one ESG lever sitting outside every unit door and around the community. It’s trash.
The resident satisfaction conversation tends to center around amenities, leasing and maintenance teams. But there’s also a team residents interact with daily that isn’t always part of the service conversation—the people who manage trash.
The all-in-one solution can be appealing. Fewer vendors, fewer contracts, fewer phone calls, and (ideally) fewer problems. Waste management, package management, pest control, and offsite storage; all those services with one number to call. The attraction is undeniable, the reality is never as good as the dream.
Trash management is a frontline resident touchpoint that shapes the perceptions of service quality, community pride and overall satisfaction. When bins overflow, the impact can be immediate and emotional. Don't fix the problem right away; you can almost guarantee a significant uptick in posts about it.
About 80% of Americans participate in spring cleaning. Roughly half will purge 11 or more items and about 22% will toss more than 26 items. In addition, the peak leasing is kicking off, which means more trash from arriving and departing residents and an increase in bulk throwaways.
Holiday trash hits communities hard. Between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, the amount of household trash spikes by about 25%, with 5 million metric tons coming from multifamily. This period gives owners and property managers insight into where the strengths and weaknesses lie in their onsite systems.