merrion street

The cost applied for the collection of household waste was stable in October. This was the last month where waste collection firms could still have applied a flat-rate pricing plan. However, in the lead up to the October deadline, all of the monitored firms had already phased out flat-rate pricing from their pricing models.

The Price Monitoring Group, which was established to monitor the cost of residential household waste collection during the phasing out of flat rate services, monitors 26 service providers. This comprises 19 individual companies with several of those being monitored in more than one area.

The Price Monitoring Group employs a mix of phone calls to waste collection firms along with additional inspections of their websites to confirm prices. This mystery shopping approach revealed early on in the series that the overall pricing landscape is complex; there is no single or uniform price arrangement across all of the service providers monitored. An example of the complexity of the market shows that some service providers offer multiple waste collection packages. For example, in October, the total number of those packages increased by 3 over the previous month to 52 (a full breakdown of all service offers is included with this report).

Complex Price Models

There was no change in the number of pricing models available in October compared to September; the total number now stands at 8. What this appears to suggest is that while waste collection firms are likely to continue adjusting pricing, many also appear to be coalescing on pricing models resulting in broad price predictability. Examples of price models include: Service charge plus per kg weight charge; E-tag and other options (the full list of all pricing models is provided with this report under the data analysis).

Phase out of flat-rate fees

For the fourth month in-a-row, none of the monitored firms offered a flat-rate plan. Waste collection firms were obligated to have completed the phase out of flat-rate plans by October.
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Where prices changed

Across the 52 price plans, some costs increased and others decreased when compared to a month earlier, those are as follows:

1. Service Provider B– waste lift charges increased from €7.50 - €9.00 (Service charge plus charge per lift per bin).
2. Service Provider B – per KG waste charge decreased from €0.35 - €0.21 (Service charge plus per KG weight charge).

3. Service Provider C – service charge increased from €10.00 to €15.00 and per KG waste charge decreased from €0.35 - €0.20 (Service charge plus per KG weight charge).

4. Service Provider D – Service charge decreased from €17.00 - €12.00 (Service charge plus per KG weight charge).

5. Service Provider D – Service charge decreased from €25.83 - €19.67 (Service charge (including weight allowance) plus per KG charge for excess weight above allowance).

6. Service Provider D – Service charge decreased from €29.16 to €23.00 ((Service charge (including weight allowance) plus per KG charge for excess weight above allowance).

7. Service Provider U – Service charge increased from €17.99 to €18.90 (Service charge (including weight allowance) plus per KG charge for excess weight above allowance).


Why some information is anonymised

The purpose of the group was to gain a broad understanding of whether or not prices fluctuated and if so, by how much during the period flat-rate services were being phased out.

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 fifteen separate occasions: 13th September, 11th October, 14th November, 12th December, 9th January 2018, 13th February, 13th of March, 10th April, 14th May, 20th June, 17th July, August 14th, September 11th , October 16th and November 14th 2018.

END

Submissions to: pricemonitoringgroup@dccae.gov.ie