Housing here skews old: 66.2% predates 1980 against a national 49.7%. Those 1,940,688 households renovate rather than rebuild, and renovation is the single most reliable generator of hauling work.
38.4% of Boston households rent rather than own, against 34.8% nationally. Across the metro's 1,940,688 households that is the largest single source of turnover work: apartment cleanouts, setouts and lockouts, and bulk pickups that recur with every lease cycle rather than arriving once.
Boston has 1,940,688 households across a population of 4,953,354. Junk removal demand tracks households more closely than anything else: people move, renovate, downsize and clear out, and every one of those is a job for someone with a truck and a crew.
Where these figures come from
Every number in these paragraphs is a Census figure for the Boston metro, compared with the national figure from the same table.