Tim Harty, The Business Times

RonSon Roll Offs started as a roll-off-dumpster business in late spring 2020. A couple years later it added trash hauling.

Humpty Dumpsters Rentals started as a roll-off-dumpster business in April 2020. Three years later it added trash hauling.

Big Foot Waste Solutions started as a roll-off-dumpster business in January 2022. A year later it added trash hauling.

In each case, the business owners were hearing from people who wanted an alternative to WM (Waste Management) or Republic Services, the first- and second-largest waste haulers in the nation, respectively.

Outside of the City of Grand Junction, which provides trash hauling strictly for Grand Junction residents who choose it, the trash-hauling options for the rest of the Grand Valley had dwindled to the two trash-hauling heavyweights. The reduction in options in large part stemmed from Republic Services entering the local market in the summer of 2022 and buying Rocky Mountain Sanitation and Monument Waste Services.

The aforementioned trio of roll-off-dumpster businesses decided to step into the ring with the waste-hauling giants, believing they could do better than the corporate giants for pricing or customer service or both.

RONSON ROLL OFFS

Soon after Rocky Mountain Sanitation and Monument Waste Services disappeared, RonSon Roll Offs owner Kalin Joshua Jackson, who lives near Mack, got in the trash-hauling game.

He had started his roll-off-dumpster business as a side hustle – his full-time job was at Ute Water – after his parents couldn’t get a roll-off dumpster in 2020, because all of the providers were booked up.

Then, he started hearing from people he knew in the Mack-Loma-Fruita area who wanted an alternative for trash collection. He said they told him they were being forgotten, bypassed entirely and still billed for services they hadn’t received.

If there was more to the story than he was being told, Jackson didn’t know. But he knew what his eyes were telling him as he saw that people had trash piled up because it hadn’t been picked up.

Then, he made a career decision.

“It just kind of got to the point where I was like, ‘Well, I’m either getting too big to where I either got to stop and just focus on Ute (Water), or I go ahead and try and take this little adventure of doing the trash stuff,” he said. “And when Republic came in and bought everybody out, I kind of decided, ‘Well, this is the time to get trash hauling.’”

BIG FOOT WASTE SOLUTIONS

Big Foot Waste Solutions co-owner Kevin Hopp, a trash-hauling veteran of eight years with Rocky Mountain Sanitation, also made a career decision when he left his job and decided to start one of his own: Big Foot Roll Off Service.

Like Jackson, he heard from people who were unhappy about customer service. More than that, though, they wanted a less expensive trash-collection alternative, so Hopp decided to offer the service.

“The prices were just kind of outrageous, honestly. Rocky Mountain (Sanitation) was fairly expensive, but (WM and Republic Services) were actually even more expensive,” he said. “And I just kind of wanted to see if I could help some people out and then started out with like 10 people, and it just kind of grew from there.

“We got more and more phone calls, and people were very appreciative of us doing (trash hauling), and that was kind of my drive to continue doing this is there’s a lot of people that really were nice to us. … They were happy that somebody else was kind of stepping in.”

Big Foot Roll Off Service became Big Foot Waste Solutions, but Big Foot still provides roll-off dumpsters, as does RonSon. The trash-collection side of the business, however, has grown quickly for both.

Hopp said Big Foot has grown from the original 10 trash-collection customers to 1,700 customers in two years.

Jackson said RonSon started with about 30 trash-collection customers and now has between 600 and 700.

Hopp and Jackson each started trash hauling with a pickup and a dump trailer and grew to the point of needing and acquiring a large garbage truck.

970 TRASH WIZARD

At 970 Trash Wizard, owner Shanda Kiteley still uses a pickup and trailer for trash hauling, but with the business growing to 300 customers since starting in March 2023, she said she’s in the market for a garbage truck. Kiteley said she has to get one because she can’t take on more customers until then.

Kiteley deviates from the Big Foot, RonSon and Humpty Dumpsters stories in that she didn’t go the roll-off route first. She was all about trash-hauling from the outset and for the same reasons the other small trash collectors got in the games.

“There was no local companies left, (Republic Services) bought everybody, so we started up,” Kiteley said.

And she heard the same complaints that the other new-to-the-game trash haulers had heard.

“A lot of it was the rate increase,” she said. “Some of it’s customer service, they can’t get a hold of anybody. They break their trash cans. They’re rude. I’ve heard it all. They charge a lot for extra items, things like that.”

Kiteley expects to see rapid growth when 970 Trash Wizard secures a garbage truck.

“Once that happens, we’ll start advertising again,” she said “Because the community responds really well to us as soon as we start, you know, letting them know we’re here. Usually the phone doesn’t stop ringing.”

BRUIN WASTE MANAGEMENT

Also joining the Grand Valley trash-hauling fray in 2023 was Bruin Waste Management. One big difference between it and the other newcomers to the market is Naturita-based Bruin Waste has been operating on the Western Slope since 1997, just not in Grand Junction.

That changed though when the Kendall family bought Bruin Waste Management a few years ago, and Bruin Waste bought Parachute-based Dependable Waste Services in August 2023.

Dependable Waste had been offering some trash collection in Clifton, but Bruin Waste decided to set up a regional office in Clifton in September or October of 2023, as co-owner Rob Kendall said that’s how Bruin Waste operates.

“What we do in all of the markets that we enter is we set up a local office with a customer-service team and a local regional manager,” Kendall said. “And the reason behind that is we want to make sure that when we have these businesses in the area, we have people that know the area, know the people, and when something goes wrong, we’ve got somebody to come and fix it.”

Like the other alternatives to WM and Republic Services, Bruin Waste has grown rapidly during its 18 months in the Grand Valley.

“(Dependable Waste) was running one route a week down in Grand Junction,” Kendall said. “Since we purchased the business, we’ve more than doubled the size of the business.

“We’re running five days a week in Grand Junction on residential. We’re running five days a week on commercial in Grand Junction. And we’re running anywhere from one to two trucks a day on construction. And then we added the portable toilet service as well.”

Kendall said Bruin plans to buy more trucks to service Grand Junction, and it may not become a giant like WM or Republic Services, but Bruin Waste aims to stick around.

“We made a commitment very early on that we intend this to be our family business for very long time,” he said. “We want to set this up to be a generational business for our family.”

FIND OUT MORE

To find rates and learn more about the small trash-hauling companies that have arisen in the Grand Valley, go to their websites or call them:

970 Trash Wizard: 970trashwizard.com or call 970-260-9334.

Big Foot Waste Solutions: bigfootrolloff.com or call 970-361-7150.

Bruin Waste Management: bruinwaste.com or call 970-285-9565.

Humpty Dumpsters Rentals: humptydumpsters.us or call 970-361-6016.

RonSon Roll Offs: ronsonrolloffs.com or call 970-623-6074.

THIS IS HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED

Bruin Waste Management co-owner Rob Kendall said Grand Junction is just like any other city in America when it comes to large, corporate, waste-hauling companies buying out the competition only to see competition re-emerge.

“The market getting bought up, all the little guys getting bought up is a very typical thing,” he said. “It happens in every city. The way that the public companies put it is ‘M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) is very active in the waste industry.’ … Small guys do well, public guys buy them, they jack up the prices. New small guy comes in, they do well, public guys buy them, jack up the prices. It’s a cycle. It’s very typical.”

A LITTLE ABOUT HUMPTY DUMPSTERS

Humpty Dumpsters didn’t get back to The Business Times for an interview in time to be included in this article, but its website provides this short summary about the business:

“Humpty Dumpsters is a locally owned and operated business that started in April of 2020 doing roll-off dumpster rentals. Almost three years later, we noticed the public’s demand for an affordable and transparently priced trash service after many of the local companies closed their doors. In July of 2023, we started offering residential trash service in most areas of the Grand Valley with commercial dumpsters following soon after.

“We are your neighbors, and our mission is to bring back the caring and understanding that only a local company can provide.”

THE REAL BIG DOG IN THE YARD

WM (Waste Management) and Republic Services may be the big, corporate-owned waste collectors in the Grand Valley, but the real giant is the City of Grand Junction. It offers trash collection to Grand Junction residents only, but that’s the largest slice of the Grand Valley pie.

The city provided the following data: Grand Junction has 15 trucks and 13 employees for solid-waste collection and four trucks and 17 employees for recycling. It has approximately 20,620 residential customers, 1,215 commercial customers and 180 government customers.

Residents who live inside the city’s mandatory service area, which was established by city ordinance in 1994, are required to utilize the city’s solid-waste service. This mandatory area includes approximately 12,185 residential customers.

Outside of the mandatory area, city residents have the option to choose between the city’s solid-waste service or a private hauler. There are an estimated 11,310 residential customers within city limits who are not required to use city service.

Approximately 88 percent of all potential residential customers within city limits utilize the city’s waste-hauling service.

For commercial waste collection, service is entirely optional, and businesses within city limits can choose any waste hauler, including the city or a private provider.

JOB SATISFACTION DOES NOT STINK

Big Foot Waste Solutions co-owner Kevin Hopp knows everyone thinks his job stinks, because literally trash tends to smell awful. But he views it differently when it comes to job satisfaction.

“The trash industry doesn’t smell the best, but you know I honestly enjoy it,” he said. “The customer really makes it for me when I hear somebody really appreciates what we do. It’s always been a nice thing to hear. Because working at Rocky Mountain (Sanitation), that’s what I heard a lot there. That’s kind of what gave me the drive to want to do my own thing.”

YOU CAN COUNT ON FAMILY

At RonSon Roll Offs, ownership isn’t as simple as Kalin Joshua Jackson declaring he’s the owner.

So, he put it this way: “It’s kind of me and the family. I mean, I’m sole owner, but the family all definitely helps out. Like, my mom does my books and does the billing, and my brother helps me, and my dad helps me. So, it’s definitely a family deal that we all pitch in and then do what we need to do to get things done.”

QUOTABLE

Humpty Dumpsters on its website touts its pricing with: “Dumpster rental prices that don’t stink!”

After a longer explanation of the importance of customer service at Bruin Waste Management, co-owner Rob Kendall offered a short and sweet summation: “We’re just answering calls, doing what people ask us and showing up when we say we will. And at a fair price.”