November 10, 2006

Perception influences recycling program's success

London site started 15 years ago, ready to grow

MARY BAXTER

correspondent

LONDON

Between mountains of debris, water pools in trenches churned by loaders, trucks and excavators.

Weeks of rain has taken its toll and turned the former northeast London quarry that is home to Try Recycling Inc. into a slick clay mess.

Chad Williams apologizes for the site’s appearance and points out some landscaping efforts.

“We are always saying to each other we’d like to be a park-like atmosphere,” he says, guiding a company pick-up through the tricky terrain.

Williams, Try’s marketing manager, says when it comes to operating a recycling site, “perception is everything.”

“All it takes is one driver to come in and talk to somebody else and say, ‘Oh yeah, I took that load to the dump there,’” and suddenly, the facility is viewed as a garbage dump, and treated accordingly, he says.

Now celebrating 15 years, Try Recycling has successfully differentiated its operations from those of a dump and both locally and across the province others have taken notice.

In 2002, the business, which includes not only a 33-acre construction and demolition recycling facility but also a 10-acre composting operation on 60 acres across the road, was awarded a London Chamber of Commerce environment business achievement award.

The company conducts a pilot program with the City of Toronto to compost household organic waste. Over the past couple of years it also participated in pilot projects with a nearby Lafarge Canada quarry to introduce glass into cement.

The success is tangible. Despite the lousy weather on a Monday morning, municipal and local contractor truck traffic is steady.

Indeed, Jim Graham, the business’ owner, anticipates demand is strong enough to support the opening of another recycling facility in London’s south end in 2007.

The south London site is just the start, he says.

He describes the company’s approach to as a template he hopes will be “welcomed into new locations throughout Ontario in the next five years.”

The dreams are big, particularly for an industry Graham says doesn’t have the best reputation around the province.

Then again, big dreams have fueled this company’s direction in one form or another since its early years.

The dream had its start in the early 1990s when three area businessmen, one of them Graham’s father, Bill, saw an opportunity in newly minted provincial recycling laws.

The younger Graham bought the business from his father in 1998, following the death of Ralph Thompson, another partner who had been responsible for Try’s operations.

Handling mixed construction and demolition waste is the company’s forte, Williams says, noting of the 100,000 tonnes of solid and non-hazardous waste handled in a year, 40 per cent comes from commercial sources. (At its outdoor windrow compost facility the company handles 30,000 tonnes a year).

MARY BAXTER

London's Try Recycling Inc. will be adding a secondary site. Currently, the company has a 33-acre construction and demoliton recycling facility. Try is celebrating its 15th anniversary in the business. Chad Wiliams, marketing manager, stands in front of the shingle area of the site, while above, heavy equipment works in the scrap wood area.

“That’s our core business; that’s the reason they started it; that still is our specialty,” he says.

The company recycles 94 per cent of what it receives.

The products generated range from landscaping to road surfacing materials, biofuels and animal bedding.

What makes Try competitive is a decision to concentrate on costing all aspects of the operations, both Williams and Graham say.

The approach has allowed the company to provide more accurate estimates for processing waste, Williams explains.

With the lack of dump capacity in the province driving up dumping fees, Try’s service may soon become as affordable, or perhaps even more affordable than taking material to the dump, Williams predicts.

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