Is good customer service in waste facilities a crazy idea?

I blogged a few days ago around customer service in waste management, and to be honest, was a bit fixated on customer service as it applies in a B2B context. There is, however, another whole conversation to be had on customer service in the consumer space at waste facilities.

The horror

We've probably all been there. You go for the once in a blue moon trip to the tip. You're towing a trailer for the first time in a year or two, half lost, and you stumble upon the entrance. 

You are then struck by a barrage of signs. Do this. Don't do that. Waivers of liability. Fees, fine print and a scowling attendant who looks at you like you're the worst form of idiot. And you haven't even opened your mouth yet.

A barrage of signs, courtesy of HuffPost

Depending on your personality, you rustle up your best "I know what I'm doing" swagger, hoping like hell you'll bluff your way through. Or you go all subservient and meekly ask what happens next. Doesn't really matter, because you then get interrogated about what is in the load, with no clues about what matters. And so you explain that you've got your husband's old vinyl suit (lively little number that was), a couple of tree branches and a couch.

You may then get an inspection, at which point the attendant uncovers a tin of paint and a couple of tyres that you've tried to smuggle in. Which, if you'd known they wanted to know about, you would have disclosed. And you then get charged some ridiculous amount for an arbitrary interpretation of the fees that you can't read anyway. And you're sent on your way to tip.

It doesn't get better at the tip site. You drive nervously down a dodgy goat track hoping you're not trespassing, before you end up with a whole heap of other non-trespassers. Another attendant wanders over and shows you the needle's eye you are to reverse your trailer through, then wanders off (perhaps to film it for "world's greatest reversing idiots"). At which point you break out into a cold sweat, and finally get in there after causing a minor riot among the people waiting.

So you unload. By yourself. Doesn't matter how heavy anything is, and by this point you just want it gone. Doesn't matter that the old couch is ok. Don't care about separating out branches from general waste. Just get it off this trailer so I can flee far from here. Which you do, and only return once you've forgotten the whole experience.

The vision

As I'm wont to say, it doesn't have to be thus.

Imagine if the tip was a warehouse in an industrial part of town, but instead of looking like a tip, it looked more like a drive through bottle shop. One big, simple sign showing prices and not much more. There are only a few prices. 

You drive in, an attendant walks over to you and doesn't bother with the interrogation. They just say hello and ask if you'd like a hand unloading. Which of course you do, and they bring a crate over to the car. And you both unload, together. No reversing, no crazy questions, just good old fashioned service.

Even better, the attendant helps to separate out the stuff that is still ok. So the couch is put to one side. The cardboard is separated with you. The paint and tyres are put to one side. The crate for rubbish remains pretty empty. All the while the attendant chats to you, you know how the place works and you know what the fee is going to be. When it's all done, you're charged the appropriate fee, paying via a mobile device and you're free to go.

But you don't want to go. Because there is an awesome little shop and cafe, where all the stuff that was separated out from everybody else is available for sale. And everything is so, so cheap.  So you drive your car (and trailer) to a parking bay, get yourself a coffee and browse. Either walking around or using one of many iPads at the tables. Congratulating yourself on a job well done, and looking for an excuse to return. Maybe all of the kids' stuff being stored in the back room? 

How could you not love this service? 

It is nothing more (nor less) than rethinking the waste facility so that it serves the needs of the customer. Not the needs of efficient bulk handling. Which, to be fair to the attendants, discourage them from helping.

Is customer service in waste facilities a crazy notion?

The value in bulky waste

Sometimes it seems that the Universe conspires to help you. For me, this happened today.

The backstory is that I've been working up a business plan for the past few months around a facility to receive, resell and recycle bulky goods.

The plan is built off my 15 years of experience in running waste facilities, and so I think I have a pretty good feel for the industry. Based on this feel, I think there is enormous potential for a waste receival site that aims to send little or nothing to landfill.

My experience was as good as confirmed by a study recently published by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme, from the UK) into bulky waste. This study suggests that there is a strong business case for a waste facility that separates and reuses bulky waste.

According to the data collected, 39 kg/hh/yr of bulky waste was delivered each year to waste facilities. Of this, 42% is furniture, 19% textiles and 19% e-waste.

Here is where it gets interesting. Of the total waste received at the site, 32% is reusable as is. With no repair. The reuse percentage increases to 51% being reusable with slight repairs.

Note that this is only what can be reused. There is another substantial category of waste that cannot be reused, but can be readily dismantled and the components recycled.

So work through the numbers. For a population of 100,000 households, there are 3,900 tonnes of bulky waste per year. Of that, about 2,000 tonnes can be resold with some minor repairs. Much of the remaining 1,900 tonnes can be dismantled and recycled too, but we'll leave that to one side for the purposes of this discussion.

Considering just the resalable, even if you sold it at a bargain basement price of $1.00/kg (ie a 20 kg bookcase going for just $20), then there are $2m worth of reusable goods being destroyed each year simply because there isn't the infrastructure to appropriately collect, repair and resell. Even worse, at $100/tonne, the landfill fees on the resalable goods represent a further $200,000 in costs.

Second hand bookcase, from Second Hand Furniture

In short, a community of 100,000 households represents a largely untapped $2.2m business in its bulky goods alone! This is quite extraordinary, and confirms that there is a business here.

Another business model for second hand books

If you are looking to take waste and reuse it, then one of the materials that you are going to end up dealing with is second hand books.

Typically these books are listed and sold on an item basis, with each book having a different price depending on what the store thinks it's worth. Here's a different model: sell books by the kilogram. The greengrocer for books. You could play with this.

It's not my idea. I first saw it written up at Springwise (a website listing entrepreneurial ideas), with the article referring to the Spanish bookseller La Casqueria which apparently sells books by the kilogram. Unfortunately I don't read Spanish, but I believe them.

There is another store in the US that does similar: Market Fresh Books. Books there are $5/lb, or a bit over $10/kg. In fact, they have some really clever business models like book rental where you pay a deposit of the book's cover price, and get refunded the deposit less $0.75 per day. If you like the book, you keep it and everybody's happy. Cool approach!

You could have a bit of fun with this. Maybe romance novels are "in season", and so you can reduce the price. Greengrocer scales, people in smocks, books put in paper bags etc. Go the whole hog.

It certainly changes thinking about books, and that can't be a bad thing. You're certainly in front. At $10/kg, you are getting $10,000/tonne. That beats paying $100/tonne at landfill, or maybe getting $300/tonne as recycled paper.

Why do books go to landfill again?

Charities and waste

I think most people understand that charities are an important destination for pre-loved clothes. Indeed, I think everybody has been touched by the great work charities do in recycling clothing, either through buying clothes at an op shop, or by placing second hand clothes in a clothing bin. Probably both at different life stages.

The quantities involved are staggering. According to the National Association of Charitable Recycling Organisations, charities in Victoria received an estimated 55,800 tonnes of goods. Of this about 65% was diverted away from landfill through reuse/resale, recycling into a range of materials (such as wiper rags) or exported to developing countries. The remainder went to landfill. The full report (pdf) can be found on the NACRO website.

Considering Victoria has about a quarter of Victoria's population, there's over 220,000 tonnes of goods handled by Australian charities each year. That is a monumental contribution.

Behind this story is a disturbing reality. Of the goods received by charities, about 35% goes to landfill. About 77,000 tonnes per year. You'd think this was avoidable, and it probably is, but it is a massive cost for charities. At a landfill cost of $100/tonne, this is an $8m problem. Each year. Not to mention time and resources sorting rubbish from good stuff, taking it to landfill and so on.

So a problem for charities, but an opportunity for some astute operators in the waste industry. Or perhaps operators outside the waste industry who don't accept the status-quo.

Imagine a partnership, charities doing their bit taking quality goods back to the community, and processors dealing with the waste (and establishing better channels to keep the waste from the charities in the first place). Working together to get some of that $8m back for charities to do their thing. Creating value from the reprocessed materials.

This has to be part of any vision for a new waste world. Crazy, entrepreneurial businesses who refuse to believe that charities have to shoulder the burden of rubbish, and that rubbish is even necessary.