Waste Management customers in the Rochester, New York area say the hauler is charging them a $75 fee simply to return their curbside carts when they end service, according to an investigation by News10NBC (WHEC).

The fee applies to container retrieval, the step that closes out a residential account. Customers who contacted the station said they expected to hand the bin back at no cost once their subscription ended. Instead, they received bills for $75 tied to the pickup of the cart itself.

News10NBC's investigation found multiple subscribers reporting the same charge, raising questions about how Waste Management discloses bin-return costs at the point of sale and in its cancellation terms. The company is the largest private waste and recycling hauler operating in the region, and its carts — typically 96-gallon wheeled containers for trash and single-stream recycling — remain company property under standard service agreements.

For customers, the dispute comes down to contract language. Haulers across the industry treat carts as leased assets deployed at customer addresses, and service agreements generally obligate the subscriber to make the container available for retrieval at the end of the term. What customers told the station they did not anticipate was a flat fee attached to that retrieval.

The reports arrive at a time when household collection costs are under scrutiny across upstate New York. Municipal franchise agreements and private subscription contracts both pass equipment, fuel and labor costs to residents, and container logistics — delivery, swap-outs and retrieval — sit inside that cost structure. A $75 retrieval charge represents a meaningful share of an annual residential subscription bill for a single-family household.

Waste Management did not dispute that customers reported the charge, according to the station's reporting, and the investigation centers on whether customers were adequately informed of the fee when they signed up or cancelled.

Customers who believe they were charged in error can dispute the bill through Waste Management's customer service channels and, failing that, through the New York State Attorney General's consumer protection division, which handles billing complaints against service providers in the state.

What happens next depends on how Waste Management responds to the complaints and whether New York regulators or the Attorney General's office takes up the billing practice — a question customers in the Rochester market will be watching as cancellations continue.