Taking Out The Trash: Texas Entrepreneur Fights City’s Dumpster Monopoly

Josh Roman started American AF Dumpster Rentals in 2020 with a single trailer-hitched dumpster and a Craigslist ad. Today, he runs four trucks, keeps about 75 roll-off construction dumpsters in rotation, and serves roughly 400 repeat customers across the booming Dallas–Fort Worth area from his business in Waxahachie, Texas. Builders choose Josh because he is fast, reliable, and local. He built his business the old-fashioned way: by out-hustling the big national companies and treating his customers right.

There was just one problem. Somewhere along the way, the city of Waxahachie decided that renting a construction dumpster within its limits would be a crime—except for the one company to which the city had chosen to give a monopoly for this service.

In 2021, Waxahachie signed an exclusive franchise agreement handing a single national waste company the sole right to rent roll-off construction dumpsters in town. In exchange, the city pockets a share of the revenue. To protect its chosen monopolist, the city sends inspectors to threaten Josh’s customers with fines of $2,000 per day and stall building permits until they swap out his dumpsters for ones from the monopoly company.

When Josh asked a city official what rule he had broken, the answer shocked him: There was no complaint or concern over safety, sanitation, or a nuisance. His only offense was competing for customers.

Josh learned how far the city would go in December 2025. He had dropped a dumpster at a job site where a contractor was building a new bagel shop. A city inspector showed up and told the contractor the project could not move forward—and that his permit was on the line—unless Josh’s dumpster was hauled off and replaced with the monopolist’s. The contractor canceled. Josh refunded the money, and that customer hasn’t returned. 

When Josh asked a city official what rule he had broken, the answer shocked him: There was no complaint or concern over safety, sanitation, or nuisance. His only offense was competing for customers.

That is not regulation. It’s cronyism: the government picking winners and losers in a private market and taking a cut of the proceeds. And in Texas, it is unconstitutional.

The Texas Constitution is clear: “Monopolies are contrary to the genius of a free government, and shall never be allowed.” It also guarantees Texans equal rights to compete and the right to earn an honest living free from unreasonable government interference. Waxahachie’s dumpster monopoly runs headlong into all three provisions.

IJ has a long history of successfully challenging rigged markets and unreasonable barriers in Texas. Our state Supreme Court victory on behalf of eyebrow threaders in Patel became the model for our efforts to ensure that the right to earn a living is taken seriously by state courts.

And in St. Joseph Abbey, IJ won a ruling from the 5th Circuit—the federal appeals court covering Texas—that naked economic protectionism is not a legitimate use of government power, freeing a group of Louisiana monks to sell their simple wooden caskets in a market the state had previously reserved for only licensed funeral directors.

This case enforces and expands that precedent.

The fight is bigger than one city. Across Texas, cities are signing exclusive franchise deals that fence entrepreneurs out of the private market for dumpster rentals. A win for Josh would ring far beyond Waxahachie, vindicating the right of every Texan to compete on equal terms. 

Josh isn’t asking for special treatment. He just wants the chance to compete in his own town. And the Texas Constitution is on his side.

Daniel Woislaw is an IJ attorney.