Industry guide
Waste & Recycling Hauling contract price increases
CPI, often the garbage-and-trash index rather than all-items CPI, plus a separate fuel surcharge. The billing systems this work collides with: the hauler billing system or QuickBooks. NAICS 562111.
Commercial hauling is a monthly fee per container, often with a fuel surcharge and disposal adjustments beside it. A contract that says CPI may mean all-items CPI-U, or it may mean the Bureau of Labor Statistics garbage and trash collection index, which does not move with all-items CPI. Applying the wrong one is a wrong bill. Applying both the index and a fuel surcharge that the clause did not stack is also a wrong bill.
Surcharges get updated because they are operational. The contractual escalator does not, because it is a sentence in a PDF. The two can be confused on the invoice, and the customer will notice the one that was applied and never see the one that was skipped.
Clause guides
- Annual price escalator — a fixed percentage added once each contract year, usually on the anniversary
- CPI adjustment clause — an adjustment tied to a named Consumer Price Index series and two named months
- Auto-renewal price increase — a price change that takes effect because the contract renewed, not because someone sent a separate amendment
- Wage pass-through clause — a right to pass a mandated wage increase through to the customer, on the formula and the notice the clause states
- Price increase notice period — the number of days of written notice required before an increase is allowed to hit an invoice
- Escalation cap and floor — a collar around an index adjustment: a maximum increase, a minimum increase, or both
By state
Each state page carries the 2026 minimum-wage position and the BLS metros, then applies them to a fictional monthly hauling fee. States without a 2026 wage step say so, instead of inventing one.