Trash removal and janitorial services are standard line items in franchise CAM reconciliations. They're often small enough individually that they don't get scrutinized — but when the costs include anchor-tenant waste services, in-suite cleaning, or compactor rentals serving specific tenants, they can represent a meaningful overcharge that accumulates year after year.
What Belongs in the Common Area Waste and Janitorial CAM
Common area exterior trash removal: Emptying trash receptacles in parking lots, sidewalks, and walkways. This is straightforward common area maintenance and legitimate CAM.
Common area interior cleaning (for enclosed centers): Cleaning of corridors, restrooms, lobbies, and food court seating areas. For strip centers with no enclosed common areas, interior janitorial shouldn't appear in CAM at all.
Dumpster service for shared containers: If the property provides a shared dumpster for all tenants' operational waste (typically for small in-line retailers), the hauling and container rental cost is legitimate CAM. The key word is "shared."
Exterior pressure washing: Cleaning sidewalks, building facades, and common area surfaces is standard CAM.
Parking lot and perimeter litter service: Regular litter pickup and parking lot cleaning is routine common area maintenance.
What Shouldn't Be in the Shared CAM Pool
In-suite janitorial for any tenant's leased space. If the landlord contracts for cleaning services inside tenant spaces, that cost should be billed directly to the individual tenant whose space is cleaned — not distributed as CAM to all tenants. In-suite cleaning as CAM is relatively uncommon in strip centers but does appear in mixed-use or enclosed mall configurations where the landlord manages a center-wide cleaning contract.
Compactor service for an anchor tenant's dedicated compactor. Large-format retailers — grocery stores, big-box retailers, QSR anchors with high waste volumes — often have dedicated waste compactors. The rental, maintenance, and hauling cost for an anchor-specific compactor is not a shared operating expense. If that cost appears in the common area waste line or under a generic "trash removal" label, it's being spread across all tenants when it serves only the anchor.
Grease trap service for food tenants. Grease interceptors serving specific restaurant or food-service tenants are the tenant's responsibility or, at most, should be billed directly to the tenant generating the grease. Grease trap service billed to the common area pool and allocated to all tenants — including non-food operators — is an allocation error.
Recycling or composting for specific tenant operations. If an anchor retailer has a dedicated cardboard baling or recycling program, the cost of that program is specific to their operation.
How to Identify the Problem
Step 1: Check the waste removal line amount relative to property size. Routine common area trash removal for a community shopping center of 150,000 sq ft might run $8,000–$20,000 annually, depending on pickup frequency and location. A waste-related line significantly above this range warrants investigating what's included.
Step 2: Look for separate line items that reveal scope. If the reconciliation breaks out "compactor rental," "grease trap service," or "organic waste disposal" as separate lines, research which tenant generates that waste type. A compactor rental that coincides with the anchor tenant's space is the anchor's cost, not shared CAM.
Step 3: Request the waste removal contracts. The hauling contract will specify service addresses, equipment types, and pickup frequencies for each container. An invoice showing weekly compactor pulls for Container #3 at "Anchor Tenant Loading Dock" is clearly not common area waste service.
Step 4: Verify the janitorial scope. For any janitorial or cleaning contract in the CAM schedule, request the service agreement. It should specify which areas are cleaned and at what frequency. Cleaning scopes that include suite numbers, interior areas, or tenant-specific spaces are not common area CAM.
The QSR Waste Volume Problem
Franchise operators in food service are sometimes surprised to find that other food tenants' disproportionate waste generation affects their CAM bill. Here's how:
A strip center has six tenants. Five are non-food retailers. One is a QSR with a high waste volume requiring three times the hauling frequency of the rest of the center combined. If hauling costs are allocated by pro-rata share, the QSR's waste cost is spread equally across all tenants.
Some leases address this directly, specifying that waste removal costs should be allocated based on actual waste generation rather than square footage. Others are silent, defaulting to pro-rata. If your concept generates minimal waste (a fitness studio, a salon, a financial services office) and you're allocated the same waste removal share as a high-volume food tenant, check your lease for any waste allocation provision.
This works in the other direction too: if you're the QSR and you have a dedicated container, make sure the landlord isn't passing your waste cost through as shared CAM while also billing you separately under a direct charge provision.
A Concrete Verification Example
Scenario: Your 2024 CAM reconciliation shows $31,000 in the "Trash/Waste Removal" category. You're a fitness franchise. Your pro-rata share is 4%. Your share: $1,240.
You request the hauling invoices. The invoices show:
- 6 pulls per week of a 6-yard container at the rear of the property: $8,400/year (shared dumpster for all in-line tenants)
- 3 pulls per week of a 30-yard compactor at the anchor tenant's loading dock: $18,600/year
- Grease trap service at the anchor tenant's kitchen: $4,000/year
Analysis: The shared dumpster ($8,400) is legitimate CAM. The anchor compactor and grease trap ($22,600) are anchor-specific costs.
Corrected waste CAM: $8,400.
Your share of the overcharge: ($31,000 − $8,400) × 4% = $22,600 × 4% = $904.
Across 10 franchise locations with this same pattern, that's $9,040 per year — and it recurs every year until someone checks.
Verify This in Your Reconciliation
Waste and janitorial lines are rarely the largest item in a CAM reconciliation, but they're some of the most verifiable because the invoices clearly identify equipment locations and service addresses. Run your reconciliation through CAMAudit to flag waste-line patterns that warrant an invoice request.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the cost of cleaning the parking lot sweeper CAM?
The operating cost of parking lot sweeping — the contractor fee for a sweeping service or the operating cost of the landlord's own sweeper — is common area maintenance and legitimate CAM. The cost of replacing the sweeping equipment itself is capital.
What if the landlord provides in-suite trash pickup as a "service" to all tenants?
If the landlord provides in-suite trash pickup as a centralized service and charges it to the CAM pool, check whether your lease includes this service in the CAM definition. If the lease is silent and in-suite cleaning was never mentioned, its inclusion may not be supported. Also check whether tenants who use more of the service (higher waste volume) are allocated a higher share.
Our building has a central trash room — is that different from each tenant having their own dumpster?
A shared central trash room and compactor serving all tenants equally is common area infrastructure. The compactor service and hauling cost is legitimate CAM shared equally. The issue arises when one tenant's waste volume dominates the shared facility's use, or when a separate compactor serves only one tenant.
Can I request a list of all waste service equipment at the property?
Yes. Under your audit right, you can request documentation supporting any line item, including a list of waste containers, their locations, and their assigned tenants or designation as "common area." The hauling invoices will typically include this information.
Is hazardous waste disposal ever in a CAM reconciliation?
Hazardous waste disposal is typically excluded from CAM in most NNN leases — it falls under environmental costs, which are often explicitly excluded. If you see an environmental or hazardous materials line, check your lease's excluded expenses list.
If I share a dumpster with neighboring tenants, am I responsible for overages caused by other tenants?
Your CAM allocation is based on pro-rata share of the total waste removal cost, not on your individual usage. If another tenant consistently overfills the shared container and the landlord increases pickup frequency, that cost gets spread across all tenants. If it's a recurring issue, you can document it and raise it with the landlord as a management issue.