2024 on the weigh tickets

The headline figures

The two that went the wrong way

Landfill tonnage rose 15 %

Faster than volume, which means the non-recoverable fraction per container got slightly worse rather than better. The cause is identifiable: a larger share of intake came from single-source industrial recoveries where containers arrive with more residual product and more adhesive labelling than mixed walk-in intake. Bigger loads are better business and slightly worse waste.

The gasket recovery trial we started in late 2023 did not work. The volumes are too small and too contaminated to interest a processor, and we have not found a route. That remains an open problem and we have no solution to announce.

Empty miles rose to 34 %

This is the one that annoys us most, because empty running is the largest single emission we directly control. The cause is growth in the wrong shape: more Dallas–Fort Worth delivery volume without a matching increase in DFW collection volume, so the northbound leg is full and the southbound leg increasingly is not.

The fix is commercial rather than operational — we need more buy-back volume in the Metroplex — and it is the main thing the buy-back desk is being measured on in 2025.

What actually improved

The reuse rate moving from 79.5 % to 81 % is the number that matters most, and it is almost entirely attributable to the rebottling line running at higher capacity. Every point of reuse rate is roughly 380 containers that stayed containers instead of becoming regrind, and on our published factors that is about 36 tonnes of CO₂e per point.

Fresh water per container washed came down 6 %, mostly from a rebuild of the second-stage settling tank that let us cascade more aggressively. Rainwater now supplies 22 % of the wash line's feed water across the year, which in a drought year is a number we are pleased with and in a wet year would be higher.

Method, so you can check it

• Container counts come from the grading station log — every unit is counted individually as it is graded in and again as it is dispositioned.
• Tonnage comes from scale-certified weigh tickets, per material stream, retained for seven years and available to any customer for their own containers.
• CO₂e avoided is calculated against a stated virgin-purchase baseline using the factors published on our Eco Impact page. It is an estimate. Every embodied-carbon figure anywhere is an estimate, and we would rather say so than imply precision we do not have.
• Water figures come from the line's own meters, read monthly.
• Empty miles come from the fleet telematics, measured as loaded miles divided by total miles.

If any of that looks wrong to you, tell us. Two of the improvements in this report came from customers challenging a figure and being right.