Dumpster rental, scheduled waste hauling, recycling collection, and routine waste disposal for common areas.
Key Takeaways
| Lease Type | Recoverable? | Controllable? |
|---|---|---|
| NNN | Yes | Yes |
| Modified Gross | Yes | Yes |
| Full-Service Gross | No | Yes |
Approximate budget share: 2-4% of total CAM pool.
Trash removal and waste management covers dumpster rental, scheduled hauling, recycling collection, and disposal fees for waste generated in common areas of a commercial property. Under a triple-net lease, tenants typically pay their pro-rata share of these costs. The key dispute point is whether the waste hauling charges reflect only common area waste, or whether specialized waste from high-volume tenants has been blended into the shared pool. Restaurants, medical offices, and food-preparation tenants generate substantially more waste than professional service tenants, and industry practice requires separate hauling contracts for those tenants. When a landlord allocates all waste costs pro-rata regardless of source, low-waste office tenants effectively subsidize the hauling costs of food-service neighbors. Lease language should carve out specialized waste streams explicitly. If your lease is silent, standard CAM audit practice is to challenge any waste category where one tenant is the clear primary generator. Tonnage data and hauling schedules are the primary evidence used to support or refute these charges.
Overcharge Risk
$800-$5,000/year
typical annual overcharge when this line item is disputed
A high-waste food service tenant shares the same pro-rata waste cost allocation as a low-waste professional office tenant, effectively forcing the office tenant to subsidize the restaurant's waste.
| Legitimate Charge | Suspicious Charge |
|---|---|
| Shared dumpster rental fees split pro-rata among similar-use tenants | Grease trap hauling or bio-hazard disposal billed to the general CAM pool |
| Scheduled weekly trash hauling with a fixed contract rate | Waste costs spiking 30%+ with no increase in tenant count or change in operations |
| Recycling collection fee explicitly authorized by the lease | Recycling line item added after lease execution without tenant consent |
| Market-rate hauling vendor selected by competitive bid | Above-market rates from a vendor with an undisclosed landlord relationship |
Demand separate waste contracts for high-waste tenants. Specialized waste (restaurant grease, medical bio-hazard) should be billed directly to the generating tenant, not allocated pro-rata to all tenants. Verify tonnage reports to ensure your allocation reflects actual waste generation.
Check Your Trash Removal / Waste Management Charges
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