A new garbage and recycling collection company is quietly growing its presence in Squamish.
Waste Control Services Inc. (WCSI), a North Vancouver-based company, has a few customers in Squamish and a larger number of customers in Whistler.
Nick Kiss, the company's sales manager, told The Chief his company decided to start offering its services in Squamish, because the owner and employees of the company escaped to the Sea to Sky Corridor for holidays and they realized there was a market for the company's services.
He added that the proximity of the communities to the WCSI operations on the North Shore was ideal.
Kiss said there was a level of complacency in Squamish with waste collection. For the last 35 years, only one company has offered refuse collection services in Squamish.
Owen Carney successfully built Carney's Waste Systems into a company that offers service throughout the Sea to Sky corridor to local governments and commercial customers.
WCSI started operations in 1993 and services Greater Vancouver as far east as the Port Mann bridge.
"Basically we offer garbage collection to anybody that needs it except regular households," Kiss said.
The WCSI customer base in Squamish is currently small, but Kiss said he wants to expand his company's presence in Squamish.
Kiss said the 18 employees of WCSI want to offer Squamish the level of service Greater Vancouver customers are used to.
"We're bringing the city service to Squamish and Whistler," he said.
Pat Taylor of Carney's said she welcomes the competition."It gives us the opportunity to benchmark ourselves to an operator from Vancouver," she said.
She noted that Carney's has invested in things that are not economically viable in a competitive market and gave a number of examples; plastics collection, recycling education programs, bear proof bins, construction waste recycling and organic waste composting.
"It is our belief that efficient waste management is best served by local businesses that understand and support the communities and their environmental initiatives," she said.
"A hauler who sends a truck from Vancouver into the corridor to service select customers and then to drive back to the city daily is not a long term solution nor does it promote sustainability."
"We are here to stay," Kiss said of his company's presence in Squamish. "It makes complete sense because we are driving right through."
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