With the goal of being environmentally friendly and ahead of the changing trends, Blue Diamond Disposal has been replacing their diesel trucks with CNG-fueled vehicles after building the infrastructure for a self-reliant, fueling station.
Blue Diamond Disposal (Mount Arlington, NJ) was formed in 1999 when owner, John Shortino, Jr., built the company from the ground up with the help of his family and partners, Peter Barba and Daniel Plaxe. Previously working at a privately owned company that had been sold to a public one in 1998, Shortino looked around and saw all of the acquisitions in the industry and decided that there was still a niche in the marketplace for the small hauler that really gives hands-on service. As a result, he left the company he was with, filed for an A-901 solid waste license in New Jersey, and the rest is history. Initially starting with two roll-off trucks and 35 roll-off containers, Blue Diamond Disposal now has 146 employees with over 100 vehicles and nearly 900 roll off containers as well as 4000 front load containers. They service 14 out of the 21 counties in New Jersey—11 counties in the north (from the Pennsylvania border to the Hudson river) and three in the south (Cape May, Atlantic, and Cumberland). Blue Diamond Disposal currently collects trash and recyclables from over 100,000 homes per week. Says Shortino, “We started with Morris, Sussex and Passaic counties, and from there we continued to expand our footprint since we were in a marketplace that we were totally familiar with. About 55 percent of our business is solid waste collection via municipal contracts and the remaining 45 percent of waste is comprised of commercial and roll-off customers.”
Switching to CNG Trucks
While there has been more of an emphasis on a recycling program because it helps to avoid the high cost of solid waste tipping fees—approximately $96 to $115 per ton—by pulling as much out of the waste stream as possible and remain competitive, the rising fuel costs have been a bigger challenge. In 2011, Shortino made the decision to move forward with implementing a Compressed Natural Gas station in northern New Jersey and started to purchase a fleet of CNG trucks, replacing their diesel ones. Blue Diamond Disposal now has 25 CNG rear load packers and front load trucks, with plans to be 100 percent CNG within three to five years. “The biggest obstacle to this process is funding,” says Shortino. The trucks are extremely expensive, and we invested in the infrastructure to build our own CNG fueling station since there were no stations in the area at the time.” Although the stations and the trucks were a big financial investment, Blue Diamond Disposal was fortunate enough to get some funding from the New Jersey Clean Cities Coalition, helping to offset some of the incremental costs related to the trucks. Right now, they have three additional trucks on order, and as the company continues to grow and take on new business, Shortino plans to purchase CNG vehicles instead of diesel. “As we grow in South Jersey, we continue to transport the diesel trucks from North Jersey to that area since we don’t have a natural gas facility yet. We subsequently replace those vehicles in North Jersey with new CNG units.”
Shortino stresses that he is most proud of the development of the CNG fueling station. “It took about a year from the initial contract being signed and plans being drawn as well as the municipal and county approvals to the actual construction being completed. After evaluating it, we decided to go with an agreement to have CleanEnergy construct it, but we wanted to own the station. We also negotiated a contract with NJ Natural Gas to bring in a 4” main gas pipe from the county road in order to give us more than adequate pressure for the volume of gas in order to fuel the trucks.” Now the station is fully operational, and CleanEnergy is contracted to provide weekly maintenance and immediate response if the system shuts down.
Internal Operations
Hiring and training at Blue Diamond Disposal is thorough. New employees not only must go through pre-employment drug and alcohol testing, but they are also required to watch training films as well as work with an experienced driver on the truck who will train them how to perform the job properly and safely. In addition, the company’s fleet manager has safety meetings every two weeks, covering a variety of topics including driver skills, backing up, proper procedure, personal protective gear, etc. Their insurance carrier, Granite State Insurance, also provides many safety films, brochures, and handouts as needed. “When we have an incident or injury, we try to learn from it and share the experience with everyone else. Or if something happens to another company that we’ve read about, we talk about it and go over it to see what we can do to avoid the same mistake,” says Shortino.
All truck maintenance is performed onsite from 4 am until 11 pm. Multiple, staggered shifts allow for mechanics to perform a lot of preventative maintenance. Drivers are required to fill out pre- and post-trip inspections and logs daily. If there is a brake or light problem, for example, maintenance workers service it and sign off on it before the trucks go back out. “We have about 75 trucks in North Jersey and 25 in South Jersey, so every day there is always something to do to keep the fleet in shape,” says Shortino. “We are also in the process of repainting some of our older vehicles just to freshen them up. We have a truck washing company, B & B Power Washing, who cleans the trucks onsite every Saturday. It’s important from a maintenance standpoint because you could have a crack or oil leak somewhere on the truck and not see it because of the dirt or grease. We spend a lot of time making sure everything is well-maintained which reflects the pride we take in the appearance of our fleet.” He also points out that the CNG push has helped business significantly because he finds that people want to deal with green companies. “We saw the changing trends on the West Coast and what they were doing to keep their fleet environmentally friendly. We are doing the same to remain competitive and keep up with the changing times.”
Blue Diamond Disposal also makes sure that they have a vested interest in the communities and counties that they service by supporting many various activities and projects including sponsoring little league teams and working with the police to bring anti-drug awareness programs to children in school. When requested, the company visits an area school and talks about recycling and the importance of it in the community and how every house can help, implanting good environmental habits in younger children.
Working Through Challenges
When Hurricane Sandy hit in the fall of 2012, it knocked out Blue Diamond Disposal’s power for about five days. However, Shortino says the company only shut down for one day and then resumed collecting trash and recyclables. With regards to the natural gas, they were fortunate enough to have CleanEnergy come within 24 hours after the storm with natural gas generators to power up the CNG facility. “They were extremely helpful, and I was truly impressed,” says Shortino. He points out that the biggest problem in North Jersey wasn’t the flooding—it was downed trees and loss of electricity. “It was extremely difficult getting diesel fuel and gasoline for two weeks. We rented a trailer and a tanker and had to send it three hours south from North Jersey all the way down to Cumberland County. They would fill the tanker with diesel and send it back up north in order to fuel the diesel trucks.” Although most of South Jersey did not lose power or suffer a lot of damage, Ocean City, which is 30 miles from the tip of NJ, endured a lot of destruction. Subsequently, Blue Diamond Disposal provided extra trucks and equipment to help clean up the debris. As a result of the storm, Shortino says that they have learned what they need to prepare for if they have another major storm in the future. “It caught us off guard, but now we are exploring the possibility of installing some permanent generators in order to have them on standby if another storm hits. We are also looking at natural gas, CNG-ready pickup trucks manufactured by Ford since it was also very difficult to get gasoline as well during that time.”
Another challenge that Blue Diamond Disposal faced has been the nation’s economy. “In 2008 when the market collapsed, it had a ripple effect throughout every industry, even solid waste. Since business dropped off, many of our commercial accounts cut back on service—if they were getting picked up weekly, they might go every other week to cut their bill in half. “The roll-off business also suffered significant declines since construction in our area decreased, as it did throughout the country,” says Shortino. However, despite these changes, the company continued to aggressively look for new business further out from their basic service area in order to keep their trucks busy. He is also happy to stress that he did not lay off people. “Although we struggled a little bit, we continued to work hard and doubled our efforts to continue to grow and keep everyone on board.” Now, the company has moved to a much more aggressive recycling policy for municipal contracts and also introduced single-stream recycling for commercial customers at every stop in order to control costs. “In this tough economy, many small businesses can’t afford rate increases so they look to control their costs by reducing the volume of garbage. We have put out multiple containers at various locations, and we set them up on weekly or twice weekly collections if they have increased volume. In effect, we’ve taken an active approach to remain competitive.”
Shortino points out that economic recovery is a major challenge throughout the nation since every hauler has been affected by the economy in the last few years. “Hopefully, the government will provide incentives to help construction companies build new properties or provide funding for homeowners who want to remodel, etc. I am seeing some improvement in the building industry, but we still have a long way to go to recover to where we were back in 2007.”
Moving in the Right Direction
Currently, Blue Diamond Disposal is exploring the possibility of building another CNG station at their South Jersey operation in Cape May County with the help of CleanEnergy. This will be feasible since South Jersey Natural Gas Company will be installing natural gas pipelines in the vicinity of their property in about 12 months. In the meantime, Blue Diamond Disposal will also continue replacing diesel trucks with CNG ones. Says Shortino, “It keeps us environmentally friendly—the trucks are cleaner and quieter. I honestly believe our Nation must move away from foreign oil dependency and use the natural gas reserves that are abundant and at the same time create jobs and reduce heavy truck emissions.”
For more information, contact John Shortino, Jr. at [email protected].