For Hupacasath First Nation, an interruption in their on-reserve garbage collection has led to the creation of a brand-new residential/commercial waste-hauling business.
HFN Environmental Waste Disposal Services has been providing both services on-reserve since June, with five employees and two trucks, said Hupacasath CEO Rick Hewson.
“And today (Aug. 22), we just got the commercial license for operations off-reserve,” Hewson said. “We are at the ready and we will be soliciting commercial clients and residential clients.”
In the spring of 2015, the private residential company servicing Hupacasath's 76 homes was forced out of business following an accident. A few months later, the City of Port Alberni announced it was getting out of the commercial garbage pickup business.
Hupacasath Council was already actively seeking business opportunities in the environmental field, so Hewson was directed to put together a business case looking at the Nation’s residential needs—recycling and at commercial garbage—to determine whether there was the potential to create a viable operation.
“That plan was sent out to be vetted by a third party. That is to give you the comfort that you have created a mousetrap that works,” he said. “We got [the business plan] back, and it proved itself. So we set about to examine our funding opportunities, and we were very successful.”
On most First Nations reserves, municipal services such as garbage collection, sewer and water are funded by the Government of Canada.
“The challenge of our council was, we have been contracting that service out for a while. Could we be our own provider?”
To continue to receive the same funding, the Nation created a third-party company to deliver the service, Hewson explained.
Once committed, the next step was to acquire one truck for residential pickup and one for picking up commercial bins. The goal was to find units that were affordable, based on the services required and the client base.
“Especially in environmental waste service, you can buy trucks that are in the ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ range that have automated container pickers and automated large commercial waste loaders.”
Hewson said spending four to six hundred thousand dollars on a unit seemed “unreasonable,” so the search was on for two serviceable, but lower-cost vehicles.
The City of Port Alberni, like many other B.C. municipalities, has converted its residential garbage collection trucks to automated pickup. Hewson said Hupacasath was able to acquire a truck from the City of Saanich.
“We were able to get it for an extremely attractive price,” Hewson said.
Saanich has converted trucks to automated pickup, but this unit had hit the end of the city’s seven-year replacement cycle, so it was considered not worth converting, he explained.
“For the commercial operation, we bought a bin-loader, and we actually bought a brand-new vehicle.”
The loading system allows the operator to load and stack multiple bins on the deck, then dump them at the collection site.
“That is quite unique, because most bin-loaders cannot dump them,” he said, “They can only load them.”
Hupacasath was able to acquire the new vehicle for “quite a bit less” than the $175,000 sticker price, as well as a number of bins no longer needed by the city to get started.
The residential service now employs three Hupacasath members, with two members on the commercial side. Much of the routine maintenance and administration can be performed in-house, Hewson said.
“The question now is, can we go out and acquire enough commercial clients to get into business?”
Hewson noted that, when the Hupacasath plan was first proposed, and the city announced it was getting out of the commercial pickup business, the telephone started ringing. Commercial clients started looking for alternate service.
Now, with the new license in hand, the new company can take on commercial clients without restriction.
“The City of Port Alberni continues to provide its own residential pickup, but there is opportunity to provide residential service in the regional district.
“Then of course there are the commercial clients. Everyone from the School District, the hospitals, apartment blocks, stores, businesses – all of which require commercial collection services.”
As well, Hupacasath is providing pickup service on both provincial and national parks.
There are currently two local commercial waste-haulers, plus one Nanaimo-based company that operate within the regional district.
“It is a competitive market, but one in which we believe we can provide a quality service, with quality products, at an attractive price point.”
For more information, HFN Environmental Waste Disposal Services now has a Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/HFNenviro/.
