Don't most cities already provide garbage pick-up?
I live down the street from a New York City grocery store. Once a week all their boxes and stale groceries wander out onto the sidewalk from where, at convenient times like 5pm or Midnight a garbage truck blocks traffic while making robot-sex sounds. Apparently, private garbage pick-up was axed when Fairways last went bankrupt.
The wild variety of situations means that large companies don't want to have to wade through all the possibilities at each of their locations and instead hire a broker to manage their waste at all sites. The broker then works out how to get them service everywhere and uses their domain knowledge to get a decent price from the hauler where negotiation is possible.
It appears to me that these guys are a Broker++ since they are building meaningful relationships with the haulers that service their customers. As they say in the article they have two customers (the waste producer, and the waste hauler). This is definitely a departure from the typical broker that treat the haulers poorly (delaying payments, short paying, never paying, ridiculous requirements, etc for the haulers). I can see it working out really well for them if haulers are comfortable letting this company inject themselves into their trucks via an app.
FYI - I work in the industry writing software for independent waste haulers. Before that I operated my family's waste hauling operation in CA. We offered 1x week residential and up to 6x per week commercial collection as part of an exclusive contract with the City. Our customers paid us directly but that's not always the case with city contracts.
two dumps near me serve all these haulers and from just talking to a few to reading their websites many have government contracts as well. the local schools have branded dumpsters!
reading the article the one service which looks cool is giving customers assurance of where their waste goes so that they in turn can use this as a halo effect when getting customers for their own service. plus if you could effectively track and route specific types of recyclables surely there is profit in it
I pay about $25/month for weekly pickup. Some weeks I have less trash and could skip the pickup, but that doesn't save me any money. Some weeks I forget to set it out for pickup on the designated day and I have to wait until the next week.
If I could get my trash picked up on demand whenever I have a full bin that would be something I'd seriously look at. I think it's a great idea.
Unfortunately I think it would end up being more expensive. No way ad-hoc pickup out in a rural area is going to be cheaper than a truck sweeping through the area once a week and servicing all the houses on one trip.
For example, my waste service will drop off a dumpster for your use for up to a week. They'll do that, for free, twice a year. I've never seen anyone else on my street use this service, but I have several times.
They'll also do electronic recycling (call and they'll tell you when they can pick it up) and the same for massive piles of lawn clippings. I also make use of the lawn clippings pick up yearly, when I'm doing major work on the yard.