'We’ve seen everything, short of a dead body': Just Junk waste removal company saw demand skyrocket during pandemic

Since the start of the pandemic, York Region saw an increase in all waste streams

Yorkregion.com
July 11, 2022

Many businesses nosedived during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Not Lance Hamilton’s.

The Aurora resident is an owner of a Just Junk waste removal franchise. His territory includes Newmarket, Georgina, East Gwillimbury, King Township, Whitchurch-Stouffville, Bradford and north, including Simcoe County and Muskoka.

At $109 for something like a dresser or stove or $629 to fill the 15-cubic-yard truck, residents can get rid of stuff they aren’t putting out at the curb on garbage day.

Hamilton saw his business skyrocket during the pandemic as people created home offices, took on home renovation projects and tossed out junk as they put their houses up for sale.

“It was as busy as it could possibly be for the two years when COVID was truly a pandemic,” he said.

“Now, we’re in a situation where we are in the downturn of the pandemic, and we haven’t seen the business slow down at all.”

Yorkregion.com did a ride-a-long, following a Just Junk crew as it picked up and disposed of household junk.

That included a first stop at a private recycling company, where Hamilton sells metal.

Just Junk does everything it can to divert waste from landfills, Hamilton said.

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“Our goal is to have as little as possible go into dumps or transfer stations. There’s two reasons. One is the very obvious one, which is it’s a good thing to make sure things aren’t going into landfills. Mother Earth matters,” he said.

It also affects his bottom line because the less weight in his truck, the less he pays to dispose of it.

The second stop is at a Miller Waste transfer station, where Hamilton pays to dispose of junk that can’t be recycled or repurposed.

While Hamilton feels households do “an exceptional job” using green bins and recycling boxes to divert waste from landfills, he said it’s upsetting to see how many large items such as mattresses and box springs, pianos and hot tubs end up in dumps.

Hamilton and his crews have picked up all kinds of weird and wonderful things, from $250,000 in cash rescued from a truck moments before it headed to the dump to carnival tickets from about 70 years ago to an extremely heavy couch that turned out to have about 20 pounds of kibble hidden inside by a pooch who didn’t like the dog food its owner was buying.

“We’ve seen everything, short of a dead body,” he said.

When the pandemic started, York Region, which processes residential garbage and recycling collected by local municipalities, saw an increase in all waste streams, according to Lindsay Milne, the region’s manager of sustainable waste management for Public Works.

“Items residents would normally bring to school, work or out in the community were largely being used at home and put into our residential waste collection programs,” she said.

There were also fluctuations in the amount of amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) thrown in garbage, depending on pandemic protocols at the time.

In 2019, ahead of the pandemic, the average amount of waste each York Region resident put out at the curb per year was 81 kilograms for garbage and 84 kilograms for green bin. That increased to 91 kilograms and 92 kilograms, respectively, in 2020 when most residents were staying at home, Milne said.

In 2021, waste generation rates plateaued.

So far in 2022, there has been some levelling off of waste tonnage. The region and local municipalities will continue to monitor waste generation trends to understand medium- and long-term impacts of COVID-19, Milne said.

Additional waste generated during the pandemic resulted in an additional $2.2 million in the department's net operating budget in 2021.

Despite higher costs, the region continues to deliver its waste management programs and services at about $300 per household per year.

“This represents great value provided to residents for less than $1 per day, substantially less than comparable utilities such as electricity and natural gas,” Milne said.

Find out about the region’s waste diversion programs at https://www.york.ca/environment/garbage-and-recycling.