Continuing my profiles of some Austin EcoNetwork Business Partners, last week I visited with the President and CEO of Texas Disposal Systems (TDS) at their main facility and corporate headquarters just southeast of Austin in Creedmoor.

 

Operations Overview

TDS began as a trash hauling company in 1977 and has grown to a corporation of 12 interdependent business units with 600 employees and a fleet of hundreds of vehicles. They serve a wide swath of Central Texas and part of West Texas near Alpine. The 2,200-acre Creedmoor TDS complex includes their ranch house-like corporate office building with a big porch, and also their landfill, recycling, composting, eco-industrial park and exotic game ranch.

 

The drive-through tour of their operations began with the citizens' drop-off area and resale center. Here individual citizens can bring in a load and TDS employees will assist you in sorting and disposing of the materials in the appropriate bins at the drop-off site. Lumber and yard trimmings go to composting/mulching. Paper, cardboard, plastics, cans,etc. go to recycling. (They'll even take styrofoam for recycling.) Serviceable appliances, furniture, etc. go to the resale store. Whatever's left goes to the landfill. You may even get some money for recyclables depending on market prices. Once you've emptied your load, you can browse the resale store for a bargain on the way out.

 

The landfill was our next stop. The active area of the landfill allowed about five garbage trucks to unload simultaneously while trash moving equipment with spiked wheels compacted the materials dumped. Earth-moving  machines cover the trash with clay soil. The mass of dirt and disposed materials goes down into the ground about 62 feet and rises about 62 feet above ground level when a section of the landfill is closed.

 

In the composting and mulching area of the property, I first spied piles of branches and dimensional lumber. There was a grinding machine on a truck trailer near finished piles of mulch. The composting piles were arranged in "windrows" each maybe 50 yards long. The food waste composting piles rose about 15-20 feet while the yard waste piles were maybe 6-8 feet tall. All the compostable materials are ground prior to going into the piles to control odor and expedite decomposition. It takes about 7 months for their compost to finish "cooking". The process time increased from about 7 weeks to the current 7 months with the addition of compostable, corn-starch-based table service items ("silverware", plates, etc.).

 

We also passed areas for scrap metal and construction waste processing. Scrap metal mostly from commercial customers is crushed and square-baled (like hay), ready to be tossed directly into a furnace at a foundry. TDS does some work for customers needing analysis of their construction waste for LEED green building certification.

 

The last area we drove through was the eco-industrial park, home most notably to their MRF (materials recovery facility) where single stream recycling is processed. There's also a small Garden-Ville Store selling gardening and landscaping supplies (soils, rock , mulch, etc.). An "artist in residence" also has a workshop where he creates sculptures from post-consumer material. We didn't enter the MRF building due to the many moving forklifts and other equipment inside. But I did see mixed piles of materials going in and stockpiles of sorted material waiting to be sold. About 6% of their single-stream recycling material goes to landfill. Also make sure to keep long, stringy stuff, like plastic bags, fabrics, wires, and cables, out of your recycling bin because it tangles in the sorting machinery.

 

Type of Customers Served

TDS provides waste hauling and/or processing services to a wide variety of customers: residential (cities, HOAs, MUDs), commercial, school districts, rural subscribers and individual citizens. Solid waste, compostables and single-stream recycling collection or processing can be made available to any of these customers. They currently provide residential pick-up for about 70 cities, HOAs and MUDs. Not all of these residential programs include compostables and recycling. Their commercial customers number in the thousands and typically don't include compostables.

 

For 2 years all the City of Austin's single-stream recycling was processed by TDS. Starting October 1, 2012 they'll be handling 40% of Austin's single-stream recycling while Balcones Resources will take the rest.

 

The TDS Green School Solutions program provides recycling and compostables collection for schools. Additionally they assist with salvage or reuse of building construction materials.

 

Unique Features of this Business

TDS is focused on minimizing the amount of material to landfill and maximizing the profit made on diverted material. Long-term landfilled material is a liability. Turning "trash into cash" by diverting it is the better option for the business and everyone.

 

In the short-term, their landfill creates very little odor nuisance. TDS maintains a small "working face", or uncovered area where trash is added to the landfill. They cover the trash added daily with clay. In fact, they have to be more vigilant about odors from their composting operations. However, there weren't any particularly strong odors from either the active landfill area or the compost windrows. There were no vultures or seagulls circling anywhere over their waste processing operations.

 

Trends and Goals

The amount of material diverted from their landfill continues to rise. The increase is driven mostly by city ordinances requiring single-stream recycling. Landfilling is usually the cheaper option still, especially for their commercial customers.

 

The prices for sorted recyclable materials coming out of the MRF fluctuate quite a bit. It's an international market and sometimes TDS will keep stockpiles of material speculating on better prices.

 

Garden-Ville's compost and mulch business is growing. Drought protection for trees and gardens seems to be a factor.

 

Favorite Environmental Impact Factoids

Communnity Involvement

TDS offers their Exotic Game Ranch and Pavilion at the Creedmoor complex as a free venue for civic organization (police, fire department, teachers, etc.) and non-profits to hold events. Since 2002 they've hosted over 1600 such events.Their exotic game ranch boasts rhinos, giraffes, zebras, gazelles, impala, and more. They also host school tours and educational programs. The only way to visit the game ranch is with a school or civic/non-profit event. (On rare occasions select bloggers may be allowed a drive-through tour.)

 

Other Interesting Bits

Kids big and small can have some fun learning more about good recycling habits from Rowdy the Recycling Rhino.