Residential waste collection prices show continued stability in September

September 2019 data – The cost of collecting residential household waste was extremely stable in September. In fact, the level of price adjustment across all of the monitored firms was at one of the lowest rates since price monitoring began.

This is based on the latest analysis conducted by the Price Monitoring Group which actively monitors 26 service providers from across the country. This comprises 19 individual companies, with some firms operating in more than one area 

Many of the waste collection firms monitored offer multiple waste collection packages to their customers. This means there are far more waste collection packages than firms.

In the month of September, the total number of recorded waste collection packages was 49, the same number recorded a month earlier (a full breakdown of all service offers is included in the data part of this report).

During the September price monitoring campaign, there was no change in the total number of price packages compared to the previous month which stands at 8. Examples of price packages include: Service charge plus per kg weight charge; E-tag and other options (the full list of all pricing models is incorporated with this report under the data analysis).

 Where prices did change

 The September price variations are as follows:

1. Service Provider N – Decreased per KG excess charge on the waste bin from €.23 to €.20 - (Service charge including weight allowance plus per KG charge for excess weight above allowance).
2. Service Provider C – Decreased the service charge from €15.00 to €10.50 – (Service Charge Plus per KG Weight Charge).
3. Service Provider C – Increased the service charge from €10.50 to €13.50 - (Service charge Plus Charge per lift per bin).
4. Service Provider F – Increased the service charge from €25.80 to €27.83 - (Service charge plus weight band charge).
5. Service Provider Y – Increased the service charge from €4.40 to €4.95 (Service charge plus charge per lift per bin plus per kg excess charge).

 Communication of price data

 As was observed during the August calling campaign, in September, there was no difficulty attaining general price information from any of the monitored firms, either by phone or through company websites.

Why information is anonymised

 The purpose of the Price Monitoring Group is to establish and track whether the prices householders pay for the collection of household waste fluctuates and if so, by how much. It does this by using a mystery-shopping approach to a proportion of licensed waste collection firms. However, since price monitoring is not carried out on a whole-of-market basis, it is not in a position to publish names of those firms that are actively monitored.

Composition of the PMG

 The group comprises representatives from:

• Waste Policy & Resource Efficiency Division
• An economist from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment,
• A statistician from the Central Statistics Office.
• Shelfwatch – an independent price monitoring group and
• Frank Conway, (MoneyWhizz) – independent consumer expert.

To date, the Price Monitoring Group has met on twenty-six separate occasions: 13^th September, 11^th 2017, October, 14^thNovember, 12^th December, 9^th January 2018, 13^th February, 13^th of March, 10^th April, 14^th, May, 20^th June, 17^th July, August 14^th, September 11^th, October 16^th, November 14^th, December 11^th 2018, January 15^th 2019, February 12^th, March 14^th, April 9^{th ,} May 14^th June 11^th, July 9^th, August 20^th 2019, September 10^th, 2019 and October 8^th 2019.

September analysis is available here