Planning Ahead

Having sold his stake in a company that he helped build, Tony Wibbeler in 2006 was in the fortunate position of surveying the business landscape to identify what type of business challenge he would like to tackle next.
To follow the dictum of working in a field that is tied to one’s passion in life, Wibbeler identified the outdoors, preserving nature and environmental stewardship as holding the keys to his next business endeavor. So, naturally, he bought a landfill.

At a Glance: Orange County Environmental LLC

Principal: Vincent J. Backs, chairman; Dr. George Bowers, board member and co-founder; Tony Wibbeler, president; Michael Russo, partner and manager of hauling operations; Robert Fintak, director of landfill recycling operations Location: Three landfills in or near Orlando, Fla.; one also has a mixed C&D processing and recycling system; plans call for recycling capabilities to be introduced at the other sites No. of Employees: 48 Equipment: General Kinematics Express sorting and recycling system, modified and upgraded by Metal Tech Systems; belt magnets; Morbark grinder; Caterpillar landfill compactors; Volvo loaders and material handlers; fleet of more than 25 trucks Services Provided: Accepts mixed C&D materials for a tipping fee and either landfills or sorts and processes materials; hauling division serves a customer base of contractors and industrial locations; additional site work services include grading, environmental services such as designing and preparing storm water treatment systems and placement and pick-up of portable toilets

While that may seem contradictory initially, the purchase was the first step toward Wibbeler assembling a team to build Orange County Environmental LLC (OCE), a company that has helped bolster the C&D recycling infrastructure in Central Florida.

 

A CLEAR CONCEPT
OCE, based in Mount Dora, Fla., near Orlando, is not Tony Wibbeler’s first entrepreneurial endeavor.
Wibbeler’s educational and career background includes a technological engineering degree and enrollment in an MBA curriculum. While attending MBA classes, he says he discovered a biomedical technology opportunity with a company that “grew from four people to a 330-person global enterprise in six years.”
That company’s technology, which “pioneered a new way to examine or biopsy breast cancer tissue,” gained widespread acceptance and put Wibbeler in the position of being able to sell his stake in that company, which he had helped build into a success.
“Even before the company was sold, I began look at what I wanted to do next,” he recalls. An executive coach he worked with helped him identify the environment as where his passion resided. As Wibbeler lists his favorite past-times and hobbies, it is clear why.
“I’m a huge outdoorsman—a mountain biker, skier, backpacker, mountain climber, marathon runner; my joy is the woods, the mountains, the water and my best days are spent in nature,” says Wibbeler of how he likes to spend time with his wife and children. “I’m just a big proponent of salvaging our natural environment.”
He started with “buying a landfill, which could be considered the exact opposite of that,” says Wibbeler, who is 36.
But purchasing landfills, Wibbeler says, “was a way to have control of material,” and was also “a great way to get introduced to an industry and to use the current habits to get cash flow and begin investing in the next way of doing things.”

For the most part, Wibbeler sees landfilling material as the current habit and recycling materials as that next way of doing things. He has started introducing programs and making investments to introduce that next way.
“When trucks go into our landfills now, they can go left to recycle or go right to landfill materials,” says Wibbeler.
That distinction only scratches the surface of the steps Wibbeler and Orange County Environmental LLC have taken to broaden recycling options for C&D materials in Central Florida.

Changing the recycling habits of haulers and contractors in Central Florida in 2010 has its challenges, admits Wibbeler. “Land-filling in central Florida is pretty inexpensive, so customers have to make a choice to recycle,” he comments.

On the customer education and service side, Orange County Environmental offers a menu of services designed to allow property owners, contractors or haulers to choose a recycling option when a contract requires it or when it makes sense for them. (See “An Expanding Menu” sidebar.)

Wibbeler is confident that even in Central Florida, a tipping point will be reached soon when the economics of recycling begin to make comparative sense versus landfilling.

In the meantime, Orange County Environmental has purchased two additional landfills and has added a hauling division, all as part of the plan to make C&D recycling more widespread in and around Orlando.

“Every truck that rolls across the scale and into the landfill now, what they don’t know is that they are investing in their future and their children’s future and the land they love to hunt and fish and play on—and more directly investing in our recycling infrastructure,” says Wibbeler.

The expenditures on the recycling infrastructure began in 2009 with the purchase and installation of a mixed C&D sorting and processing system at one of Orange County Environmental’s three landfills.

The company worked with systems installer Rich Howard of Metal Tech, Pawley’s Island, S.C., to modify and install a C&D Express automated system manufactured by General Kinematics, Crystal Lake, Ill.

The mixed C&D system, which consists of eight sorting stations and a series of conveyors and automated screens, has been operating since December of 2009 and, according to Wibbeler, is the springboard that will start the company on its journey to build additional recycling and processing capacity at each of its locations.

MATERIALS AND MARKETS
While affordable landfill costs provide a traditional barrier to increased C&D recycling in Florida, the practice receives a boost in the form of building materials commonly used in the Sunshine State.

“The most commonly used building materials in Florida now are made from rock or metal,” says Wibbeler. Contractors and haulers alike are largely aware of the profitability of recycling these materials.

It can be a plus for Orange County Environmental when those materials are part of loads taken to one of the company’s landfills. However, if the metals are diverted separately to a scrap recycler or the concrete is crushed on-site, Wibbeler’s company may not be involved.

And unfortunately, materials not in those two categories are likely to be put into the container considered waste. Wibbeler says that the types of wood commonly generated at job sites—pine lumber on construction sites and palm trees at demolition sites—do not have always have the BTU values that make them especially desirable as fuels. This has prompted the company to work with private investor John Wagner to operate a mulch production and coloring operation.

While in some parts of the country discarded gypsum drywall can be ground up and sold as a soil amendment to nearby farmers, “the soil content in Florida doesn’t support that beneficial reuse,” says Wibbeler.

AN EXPANDING MENU

In the few years that he has owned Orange County Environmental LLC, Apopka, Fla., founder Tony Wibbeler has introduced a variety of services designed to capture market share. Offering recycling of mixed C&D materials has been one way to attract hauling and recycling business from contractors involved in LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) projects in particular. Beyond making potential customers aware of his recycling service, Wibbeler has also put together menus of services designed to provide new options to the Central Florida market. Among the Orange County Environmental programs that Wibbeler lists: • A basic recycling package that provides a letter of recycling verification; • A Gold package for those requiring a 75 percent recycling rate and a level of documentation with times and dates and specific materials tracking; • A Platinum package that can include source-separation; on-site labor; and documentation including photos for each container as it leaves the job site.

This set of circumstances has meant Wibbeler and his colleagues have been involved not only in marketing hauling and recycling services to customers, but also in bolstering end markets for recycled materials.

On the gypsum side, several options still exist, including offering the material to composting centers and soil companies or back to drywall manufacturers. “We [also] have a unique gypsum offering” that he prefers not to share with potential competitors. “I do have a very unique way of handling gypsum that no one else does. The solution costs money and it’s real. It’s not placing it onto a farmer’s field and it’s doing no harm,” adds Wibbeler.

The sizable wood portion of the mixed C&D stream is largely being turned into a landscaping mulch product by a Morbark grinder and colorizing unit. “We have a mulching facility at one of our landfills, co-located so that land clearing debris and dimensional lumber can find its way back to the market as colored mulch,” says Wibbeler.

Metals, concrete/brick/block, cardboard, clean wood and clean drywall scrap are thus all materials targeted for separation by the automated system as well as by employees working the sorting stations.

In addition, the sorting and processing system creates an alternative landfill cover product that can be used by OCE. “The dirt ‘unders’ byproduct from our system is ideal as C&D landfill cover, reducing our need to extract natural dirt products from the ground unnecessarily,” says Wibbeler.

The company’s use of the General Kinematics system began only a few months ago, although Wibbeler credits suppliers such as Richard Howard of Metal Tech and private investor John Wagner for helping get the system off to a flying start. “Richard was on our picking line for more than a week to help identify what kind of material was coming in and how to adjust our system to address it,” says Wibbeler. “Everyone from both GK and Metal Tech absolutely went above and beyond.”

The deployment of the system is just a start, says Wibbeler. “Our long-term view is that this is our starter system,” he remarks. “As we get locations up and running, bigger stationary sorting systems will be installed while this system will be used on-site at large construction and demolition projects throughout the Southeast.”

Adds Wibbeler, “That would be the ultimate in sustainability—what I think is very forward-thinking and progressive sustainability across all levels, not just recycling but fuel savings and road wear and tear as well.”

ALLIES AND CUSTOMERS

DIRECTIONAL DECISION

Front-line employees at the three C&D landfills run by Orange County Environmental LLC, Apopka, Fla., make important decisions every day. Drivers and scale operators at the landfills also serve as inspectors who identify whether some trucks will head to the landfill or whether their loads will be diverted for recycling. “Our basic program is, go left to recycle, go right to landfill,” says Orange County Environmental President Tony Wibbeler. In some cases, such as loads generated at LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) projects, loads are pre-determined to head to the recycling area. In other cases, “deliveries come in that we think should be recycled—say with a lot of metal, cardboard, concrete or dimensional lumber,” says Wibbeler. “Many times, it’s our drivers who make that decision—they see a lot of metal or cardboard or concrete, they know which direction to send the truck,” he adds. “It’s one of the benefits of having control of the waste stream as a hauler.”

Earlier this decade, Wibbeler acknowledges that sometimes he was feeling like part of a distinct minority advocating recycling and sustainability in Central Florida.

“When I first talked to people, no one wanted to listen to me,” he recalls. “What I usually heard from contractors was, ‘If you can make recycling cheaper, I’ll do it.’ Almost no one wanted to talk about it,” says Wibbeler.

Among the exceptions were the local United States Green Building Council (USGBC) chapter and large commercial contractors who had a broader exposure to working in other parts of the country and world. “When they work on behalf of multi-national clients, many of them have adopted a corporate mandate toward sustainability,” says Wibbeler.

During the past five years, there has not been a 180-degree turnaround, but the notion of recycling scrap building materials has become far more familiar.

Wibbeler points to the USGBC and its LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification process as part of the reason, and the attempt to reach LEED certification by so many commercial, industrial and institutional property owners.

“Cost is still an issue, and it remains affordable to landfill here, but now a lot more customers will pay a small premium to recycle,” says Wibbeler.

“LEED has really helped us to get some visibility on the importance of C&D recycling,” says Wibbeler. The LEED activity has helped spark growth. “We have seen a five-fold increase in revenue, and what we have hoped to accomplish is looking a lot more achievable.”

The table is ideally set for the next upturn. Wibbeler identifies “perfecting the art of what we do now—each sector of our business,” and “building internal infrastructure, such as a software system that ensures our business units and locations are talking to each other and training employees” as his current priorities.

“I’m a landfill operator, but I’d love it if the landfills last 60 years instead of 20. With the airspace I currently help manage, I’d rather keep recycling, have the landfill space and not either invite in more landfill competitors or destroy beautiful land that exists today.”

How will Wibbeler define success? “When our customers say  we are providing the gold standard in service, and when the Central Florida recycling rate for C&D is more than 50 percent.”