3 ms·

My initial reaction, I have to admit, was roughly yours. I read on, hoping to find some kind of innovative notion, some x factor that would be a real game chan

My initial reaction, I have to admit, was roughly yours. I read on, hoping to find some kind of innovative notion, some x factor that would be a real game changer, annnnd I smacked right up into this: "Founded by Morris and Lane Moore in 2008, Rubicon has created a virtual marketplace where thousands of small, local haulers can bid on portions of huge national contracts. This fosters competition between haulers, driving down the price of service." Sure, people who use their own private vehicles to haul trash and recycling for a living are going to love taking portions of national contracts away from union workers with benefits and company vehicles, for about five minutes. How many of these workers will live in their hauling vehicles?

scott_karana 12y ago
"Local haulers" implies, to me, local industry professionals who would prefer not to work for the Big Two. I didn't interpret it as "Uber for Trash", people lugging banana peels and coffee grinds in their Civics.
- trhway 12y ago
  >people lugging banana peels and coffee grinds in their Civics. if i remember correctly, this is exactly the year when people will be feeding the banana peels into the fusion generators in their Civics.
HillRat 12y ago
No one's talking about "UberX for garbage;" the idea here is to let local companies with a relatively small number of trucks syndicate to compete against the large, national companies for contracts they otherwise wouldn't have access to. These are companies that are licensed and already under contract with either the local municipality, or individual homeowners and businesses, to pick up trash. A company like Southland isn't going to want to negotiate waste haulage deals for each city 7/11 operates in; this concept lets -- as far as I can tell -- large companies negotiate with a single virtual supplier, who then has subcontractual responsibilities. The interesting part is how Rubicon then attempts to extract value from the trash. Given that recycling is a loss center for local governments, if they can pull off value extraction from the solid waste stream then they're going to be an environmental and public-fiscal net good.

scott_karana 12y ago

"Local haulers" implies, to me, local industry professionals who would prefer not to work for the Big Two. I didn't interpret it as "Uber for Trash", people lugging banana peels and coffee grinds in their Civics.

trhway 12y ago
>people lugging banana peels and coffee grinds in their Civics. if i remember correctly, this is exactly the year when people will be feeding the banana peels into the fusion generators in their Civics.

HillRat 12y ago

No one's talking about "UberX for garbage;" the idea here is to let local companies with a relatively small number of trucks syndicate to compete against the large, national companies for contracts they otherwise wouldn't have access to. These are companies that are licensed and already under contract with either the local municipality, or individual homeowners and businesses, to pick up trash. A company like Southland isn't going to want to negotiate waste haulage deals for each city 7/11 operates in; this concept lets -- as far as I can tell -- large companies negotiate with a single virtual supplier, who then has subcontractual responsibilities. The interesting part is how Rubicon then attempts to extract value from the trash. Given that recycling is a loss center for local governments, if they can pull off value extraction from the solid waste stream then they're going to be an environmental and public-fiscal net good.