Habitat for Humanty ReStore
ReStore reduced hauls, enhanced efficiency, and improved safety with Smash My Trash.
2/3 Reduction
in annual hauls
in savings each year
Use Case
Efficiency and Safety
Industry
Non-Profit Big Box Retail
Company Size
Medium
Location
Los Angeles
Challenge
Three Habitat for Humanity ReStore locations in the Great Los Angeles area were struggling with overflowing open-top dumpsters, minor worker injuries, and losing time dealing with haulers.
Solution
All three locations received at least two smashes per week from the Southeast Los Angeles Smash My Trash location. Smash My Trash also accommodated ReStore when they needed a extra Smash.
Results
Routed services from Smash My Trash led to a two-thirds reduction in the number of annual hauls for each ReStore, over $230,000 in savings, and a massive reduction in work place injuries.
“The cost savings have been the added benefit that I really appreciate, but to not have injuries in the store with either a volunteer or my own employees, that puts them out for any period of time also just adds back staff to my team and makes me be able to create a more engaging and encouraging environment.”
A Deeper Dive Into ReStore
and Smash My Trash
ReStore’s Waste Challenges
Habitat for Humanity ReStore is a network of home improvement and donation stores across the country. ReStores accept donations of everything from building supplies to furniture. You can often find cabinetry, kitchen and bath fixtures, and flooring and tile at your local ReStore.
Given the nature of donations, ReStore locations often have an excess of waste. Whether it is a donated couch that is too damaged to be sold or broken building material, ReStore will sift through the donations and ultimately toss what can’t be sold.
The problem with this type of waste is that it fills up a dumpster quickly. Angy Smith, ReStore’s SVP of Retail Operations, spoke on the difficulties of dealing with the excess waste in 2020.
“If you think about trying to keep things out of the waste streams, one of our biggest challenges several years ago was the amount of waste that we were dealing with in each location, ” Smith said. “And so we were really concerned about how much waste we were creating in our efforts to upcycle and keep things out of the landfill. So it was a really particularly difficult problem that we were mulling over.”
2020 brought an influx of donations to ReStore. People were upgrading their furniture, moving into new homes, and producing excess supplies from home renovations. While they love to have more donations, ReStore locations were quickly becoming overcrowded.
“Imagine we’ve got three stores with one large roll-off dumpster, and that bad boy was filling up consistently,” Smith said. “Especially as we went through Covid, where a lot of folks were getting new furniture and donating their old test, which was great. We love to have it, but, man, it was definitely a huge challenge of ours. And this kind of waste produced just kind of all over the place, different kinds of items.”
Need help managing your waste?
Learn how Smash My Trash can reduce your hauls, save your business money, and help the environment.
How it Works
Locations
Torrence
The first location to work with Smash My Trash in 2020 which has one dumpster and weekly pulls.
Belflower
The ReStore headquarters for Los Angeles. This location started with three dumpsters pulled weekly, and reduced to two dumpsters pulled roughly every 10 days.
Los Angeles
In the heart of LA, on La Brea Boulevard, this location has the smallest footprint of the three. The dumpster sits in the parking lot, taking up space from the receiving area. There is little room for overflow and excess waste would take over parking spaces from customers and donors alike.
“Safety is almost a bigger piece to me over savings, because I was able to go a year incident free. Here at Belflower, they almost went three years incident free. And we used to have a regular incident with either a volunteer or an employee with smashing our own trash with a sledgehammer. It’s so nice to walk past a dumpster and never see a sledgehammer.”
Emphasis on Safety
When you think about waste you might not often think about the safety hazard it can cause. Overflowing dumpsters are a particular problem with debris crowding the area and potentially causing damage or hurting employees. Too often companies will resort to extreme measures like using a forklift to push down trash or have people attempt to stomp down the waste.
In ReStore’s case, employees and volunteers were using sledgehammers to break down furniture in order to make it fit in their roll-off dumpsters. This created safety issues for the ReStore locations in the LA area.
“We did have some challenges with people thinking it was a really good idea to take a sledgehammer and break that stuff up before they put it in.” Smith said. “And we had some unfortunate injuries from flying shrapnel off of pieces. One of the things that I pride myself on was safety.”
“We were looking to try to increase our safety record in all three locations and we’ve been able to do that. But I think a large part of that is what we’ve done to change how we handle waste at our ReStores. That’s one of the benefits that it’s kind of a side benefit, but it’s actually one of the bigger ones that I think is really important to long term strategy.”
“The cost savings has been the added benefit that I really appreciate, because to not have injuries in the store with either a volunteer or my own employees, that puts them out for any period of time also just adds back staff to my team and makes me be able to create a more engaging environment.”
Since engaging with Smash My Trash in 2020, the LA area ReStores have been able to go largely incident free. The Belflower location went three years without a safety incident.
Real Cost Savings
Before partnering with Smash My Trash, ReStore was averaging 624 annual dumpster hauls in 2020. Today, they are down to annual 208 hauls – that’s a 66% reduction in the number of expensive hauls they need per year thanks to routed mobile waste compaction services offered by Smash My Trash.
When you reduce that many hauls, you end up with massive savings as well. Smash My Trash has saved these three ReStore locations more than $230,000 annually.
“I really appreciate the savings generated for us by Smash My Trash. Not only have we saved a lot of money, we have saved our employees and volunteers from injuries. Even minor injuries take them away from their jobs, which adds back staff to my team. Preventing injuries saves time, energy, improves efficiency, and creates a more engaging and encouraging ReStore environment.”
Improving Efficiency
Not having to wrestle with inconsistent, inconsiderate haulers every week or supervise the breakdown of furniture frees up staff for more important tasks.
“In a ReStore you don’t have a huge staff. Anytime you can take some task that takes time off of their plate and put them back into customer service, helping the team, selling something to a customer, working with a donor, it’s always a benefit.” Smith said. “The space that we got back, the ability to always drop off the donations, the time back from the associates that would usually have to work on those tasks of breaking things up to make them fit, and then really us being more responsible with what’s getting sent to the landfill.”
“Now I’m sending to the landfill a roll off dumpster that is extremely compacted and very full and doesn’t have a lot of air in it. And that doesn’t take up space at the landfill.”
The dumpster you have at your facility isn’t the only spot that deals with space limitations. Landfills also struggle to manage the limited square mileage they have to work with. Often they utilize giant landfill compactors to attempt to reduce the space that waste is taking up.
But with Smash My Trash, that compaction happens at the first step. Waste coming into landfills is already broken down and compacted, reducing the need for large landfill compactors. It also leads to fewer interactions with your hauler.
“I used to be involved in the hauling process because my GMs were calling me saying I’m just going to let you know when you get here,” Smith said. “Receivings backed up with trash because the hauler didn’t come out today and I can’t get in touch with them. And we have three different ones for every different one for every single store. And now we don’t have to deal with that because we truly are just pulling our dumpsters once a week instead of three to four times a week.”
“And that’s what’s really made the benefit for us is I feel like, I think I’ve heard of one hauler issue in the last probably 12 to 18 months. And that makes it so much easier because at the end of the day, those don’t really go anywhere. You can complain, but they’re like, we can’t get to any sooner. We don’t have an empty container, we don’t have a guy that can pull it. At the end of the day, they can’t do much. They’ll give you excuses.”
Superior Customer Service
Smash My Trash prides itself on exceptional customer service. We understand the variable nature of waste produced, especially with a customer like ReStore.
“We’ve been absolutely ecstatic with the service and customer service all around,” Smith said. “Billing is amazing. Questions? Hey, we need an extra Smash. We need some support. I know it’s last minute. Can you help me out today? That doesn’t always happen, but we’ve been able to really build a strong relationship with Smash My Trash.”
“I feel like hauling companies are something that you just deal with. ‘We’ll get to you when we get to you,’ is what they say. I mean, my guys are pretty good. They know who their contact is at Smash, and they know how to sweet talk them a little bit if we need something. But it was definitely difficult to get a last minute haul or add a haul if you have a schedule or even sometimes get them to come when the gates are open. So not having to deal with that has also been one of those kinds of side benefits.”
A Better Way to Handle Your Waste
Smash My Trash has made a massive impact on just three Habitat for Humanity ReStore locations in Los Angeles. The service has improved efficiency, massively reduced annual costs, and, perhaps most importantly, improved employee safety at each store.
Smash My Trash can have the same impact on your business, too. Whether it is cutting down on hassles with haulers, saving money, improving operational efficiency, or reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Smash My Trash can benefit your business.
