Service Agreement for Commercial Food Waste Collection

Last updated: Sept 15, 2026

Section I: Basic Terms of Service

Overview of Service Agreement

Full Sun Compost’s commercial food waste collection service provides customers with 64 gallon two-wheeled trash cans (“roll carts” or “carts”) for sustainable disposal of food waste and other compostables. Full Sun Compost exchanges used carts for clean carts and the material in those carts is screened for contamination and then upcycled into garden-ready soil amendments at our compost facility.

The two core elements of this service agreement are as follows:

  1. Full Sun Compost agrees to exchange the customer’s carts on a mutually agreed upon schedule and to compost their contents at our compost yard, at 401 Haines Ave NW. This facility is registered with the New Mexico Environment Department.
  2. Customer agrees to minimize non-compostable contamination in their carts and to pay all invoices and contamination fees in a timely manner. 

Pickup Scheduling

Food waste should be picked up frequently to maximize the environmental benefit of composting and to minimize the negative impacts from odors, pests, and greenhouse gas emissions. As such, Full Sun Compost requires that all customers agree to receive a weekly or semiweekly (twice a week) pickup; customers will be assigned to one or more routes and can expect pickups on the same day(s) each week. Exceptions to this policy (such as biweekly or ad hoc pickups) will be considered on a case by case basis.

Full Sun Compost will make a good faith effort to initiate contact with customers ahead of major holidays (and school breaks, for educational customers), but the customer is ultimately responsible for canceling any scheduled pickups. Dispatch Fees will be assessed for any non-cancelled pickups that can’t be completed due to service location closures or locked facilities. Full Sun Compost will make every effort to accommodate cancellations requested by 8am on the day of a pickup, but will only guarantee those requested by noon the day prior. 

In the event that Full Sun Compost cannot complete a pickup on the scheduled day (whether due to inclement weather, staffing, vehicle availability, or any other reason), Full Sun Compost will make a good faith effort to notify the customer as early as possible and to reschedule the pickup for a mutually agreeable day and time. 

Invoicing and Payment Terms

Customers on a fixed pickup schedule will be invoiced monthly, on Net30 terms. Ad-hoc customers will be invoiced at Full Sun Compost’s discretion, also on Net30 terms. Full Sun Compost reserves the right to add a 1% monthly finance charge on all overdue balances. 

Pricing Structure

Unless otherwise specified in a written quote, bid, or service agreement, customers are billed under the Dispatch Fee and Cart Exchange Fee structure described below. Full Sun Compost may instead offer fixed monthly, bundled, or otherwise customized pricing, which overrides the structure below.

Dispatch Fee: Customers will be charged a Dispatch Fee (previously “Site Visit Fee”) each time that Full Sun Compost dispatches a truck to one of the customer’s service locations, whether a successful pickup is completed or not. The price of the Dispatch Fee is set per-customer, and depends on the type of customer, the customer’s service location, and any obstacles related to accessing the service location (including but not limited to parking constraints, security hurdles, limited access hours, and the distance carts must be moved by hand to reach the truck). Full Sun Compost reserves the right to make an initial adjustment to a customer’s Dispatch Fee after three months in service, and once per year thereafter. 

Cart Exchange Fee: Customers will also be charged a Cart Exchange Fee for each used cart that is exchanged for a clean cart. The Cart Exchange Fee also varies per-customer, depending on the type of customer and attributes of the material (such as weight, viscosity, smell, etc). Full Sun Compost reserves the right to make an initial adjustment to a customer’s Cart Exchange Fee after three months in service, and once per year thereafter.

Additional Fees & Surcharges

Cart Replacement Fee: In the event that a cart is lost, stolen, or irreparably damaged, the Customer will be charged a Cart Replacement Fee of $75. This fee will not be charged for ordinary wear and tear, which cannot be attributed to a single customer.

Unused Cart Fee: In the event that a customer has more carts on site than they are actively using (based on the largest pickup for that billing cycle), Full Sun Compost reserves the right to charge an Unused Cart Fee of $10 per extra cart per month. 

Compostable Plastics Fee: Full Sun Compost accepts incidental amounts of certified compostable plastics in their commercial food waste carts, for no additional charge. Customers whose organics stream contains substantial amounts of compostable plastics may be required to pay a per-cart processing fee for those materials.

Fuel Surcharge: Full Sun Compost reserves the right to add a fuel surcharge to all customer invoices when local fuel prices exceed $3.50 per gallon, based on actual fuel purchases during each billing cycle.

Contamination Fees: Fees, policies, and processes related to non-compostable contamination are detailed in Section II. 

Section II: Contamination Policies and Fees

Overview

One of the largest challenges faced by food waste collection services and compost yards is contamination of their input streams with non-compostable materials. With the finished compost destined for farms, gardens and yards, it is critical that the inputs be clean and safe, and that materials break down at the molecular level in an appropriate time frame. Screening of contaminants is largely done by hand and is very labor intensive. Our crew spends many hours every week picking plastics and other contaminants out of our food waste bins and active compost piles.

Contamination problems are best addressed as far upstream as possible, close to the point at which the contamination is first introduced. The purpose of this contamination policy is to communicate Full Sun Compost’s expectations of their commercial customers regarding contamination, and to help their customers save money on contamination fees by preventing/intercepting contamination before it leaves their site.

In addition to needing to keep the compost clean, Full Sun Compost is only allowed to haul or receive source-separated compostables. Trash and recyclables require a waste hauling permit issued by the State of New Mexico, and must be hauled to a permitted landfill or recycling facility.

Accepted materials & troublesome contaminants

Full Sun Compost can accept any material derived from plants or animals, including all food waste, inedible plant or animal parts, and plastic-free paper products, but excluding pet and human waste, compostable diapers, and compostable plastics. Our official accepted material list is available on our website and is subject to occasional change, but from our commercial customers, our most common contaminants fall into four categories:

  1. Food packaging and labels, including produce stickers, twist ties, rubber bands, plastic bags and clamshells.
    • An egregious example: tasked with disposing of a large volume of moldy broccoli, an employee fills an entire cart without removing the rubber band and plastic bar code tag around each broccoli bunch. If this cart is accepted, Full Sun Compost’s staff then have to sift through the entire cart one broccoli bunch at a time, removing the rubber bands and tags.
  2. Single use service items like plastic straws and plastic cutlery.
    • These are particularly common after events and at food service establishments where the food waste is post-consumer and more likely to be handled by individuals with less experience screening for plastics.
  3. Trash and recycling, due to leaving carts in publicly accessible areas where they are mistaken for trash cans.
    • Customers having this problem should explore environmental solutions, such as relocating the carts to a secure area, securing them with a chain and padlock, or improving signage. 
  4. “Biodegradable” plastics.
    • Plastics labeled “biodegradable” are typically an 80/20 blend of petro-plastics and bioplastics and can never be composted OR recycled.
    • “Biodegradable” plastics should not be confused with certified compostable plastics. Our policies on certified compostable plastics are outlined above.

Contamination reporting and billing process

  1. At the customer’s pickup location, Full Sun Compost’s staff perform a quick spot check of every cart, to record an estimated volume and check for visible contamination. At their discretion, they may reject a customer cart and exclude it from that week’s pickup. In such cases, they will leave a physical note or sticker indicating that the customer is responsible for removing the contamination before the cart can be collected. The customer will also receive an email, including a photo of the contamination, and a Rejected Cart Fee will automatically be added to their next invoice.
  2. After carts are exchanged at the customer’s pickup location, they are subjected to closer screenings both in the truck and at Full Sun Compost’s facility. Contamination discovered at any of these points will be graded as either “nuisance” or “egregious” based on the severity of the contamination and the amount of time required to remove it. 
  3. Since grading of contamination is inherently subjective, all grades will be reviewed by Full Sun Compost management before further action is taken. Then the customer will receive an email with photos of the contamination and notice of the appropriate Nuisance Contamination Fee or Egregious Contamination Fee, which will be added to their next invoice. 
  4. Full Sun Compost will regularly review their internal standards for grading contamination and regularly retrain staff on their usage, to ensure equitable application to all customers.

Contamination Fee Structure 

  • Rejected Cart Fee:
    • $15 per cart rejected. 
    • Note that the customer will be billed the usual Dispatch Fee even if all carts are rejected.
  • Nuisance Contamination Fee:
    • $30 per contaminated cart. 
    • If a customer has three or more nuisance carts in a single pickup, Full Sun Compost reserves the right to aggregate them into a single egregious violation (see below). 
  • Egregious Contamination Fee:
    • $100 for the first incident.
    • $200 for the second incident.
    • $300 for the third and subsequent incidents. 
    • Full Sun Compost reserves the right to terminate service for any customer that has accumulated three or more egregious contamination reports, at any time and without notice.

Section III: Changes to these terms of service

Full Sun Compost reserves the right to revise these terms of service from time to time. Customers will be notified of such changes as early as possible, and provided with a permanent link to the latest terms on Full Sun Compost’s website. Following a minimum grace period of fourteen days after revised terms are announced, Customer’s continued use of Full Sun Compost’s service shall indicate Customer’s agreement to the revised terms.