Environmentally Conscious Trio Launches Business Curb-side Recycling for Households

Sherwood Park News , Wednesday April 13, 2005

by Terri Kemball — Evergreen Ecological Services is connecting the dots of waste collection.

The three long time friends have more than Star Trek in common. The young people all grew up in Sherwood Park, where they attended Sherwood Heights junior high and went on to graduate from Salisbury Composite high school. After high school, they went separate directions but remained close friends. “Most of our memories are shared memories,” noted Donini. They also share a broad view of the world and their place in it. While camping on the way down to Vegas last year, the trio was musing about Canadians’ interest in environmental preservation and environmental stewardship.

“We wondered how many people who don’t go to the recycling depots would rather have it picked up at the curb,” said Donini. They knocked on doors when they returned home and found great enthusiasm for such a service. For Chubb, launching a company was a natural extension of her education as she’d just earned her business degree. “I was interested in having my own business,” she said. “It was just a matter of coming up with the idea.” Having a chance to work with her friends was another enticement for her. Chris Guenette was working as a fully licensed crane operator but he, too, jumped at the chance to join his friends. “Being your own boss” was a big incentive for him. Starting a waste business was also a departure for Donini, who has a bachelor of Science in Kinesiology and had been accepted to a masters program in Physiotherapy.

“It’s something I really believe in,” he said of the environmental venture. “It’s more than a business -- it’s a calling.” When the group offered residents weekly curb-side pick up in Sherwood Park and rural Strathcona of all recyclables, their business immediately took off.

Today, they have 400 Park customers and 30 rural ones. They’ve also bought Dr. Recycle, which performed the same service in St. Albert and Legal. Now, their collective customers top 800. Ever Green has no limit on the blue bags someone can put out at curb-side. After all, said Donini, “Why would we want to limit the degree that people recycle?” They pick up, on average, three bags from each household, with the trio working together on the rounds of their communities. Ever Green has markets for everything -- tires, oil, plastic, tin cans, computers, glass jars, scrap lumber, and TVs. They don’t make much money on the materials themselves but the stable base of clients is allowing them to do well. That they’ve added some commercial customers has been a nice bonus.

The partners eventually hope to carve a bigger niche in the waste industry by “connecting the dots,” that is, creating a system that picks up all streams of waste. But for now they’re focused on fine-tuning their existing business, which they’re adapting all the time. “It’s been a steep learning curve but we keeping learning more and more all the time,” said Donini.