Our Sustainability Checklist: Understanding and Actualizing Impact Potential
Sustainability, Recycling, Donation
Since we began in 2020, our organization has been focused on much more than simply “removing junk.” For simplicity’s sake, there are two primary steps involved in the junk removal process: Removal and Disposal.
By nature of the phrase “junk removal,” there is an inherent focus on the first step of the process — the Removal.
Think back to any “junk removal” advertisement you may have seen on the television or heard on the radio, and it probably portrayed the following: Two able-bodied individuals arrive at the client’s property, the client identifies the items they would like removed, and the items are then loaded into a truck and hauled away.
The items practically disappear. It’s simple. Convenient.
But what happens next? Even though the items “disappeared” from the client’s property, they still exist. The items must go somewhere. That somewhere is vitally important.
Where ought a junk removal company “dispose” of these items after the first half of the process, the Removal, is complete?
That company could simply dump everything at the landfill. It’s simple. Convenient.
But as a business, doing the right thing is seldom convenient.
At Just-Take-It Hauling, our mission is twofold:
Understand and maximize our positive impact on the environment and our local community.
Understand and minimize our negative impact on the environment and our local community.
Crucial to understanding our impact, for better or worse, is understanding the interdependent nature of our action (and our inaction) relative to the environment and our local community. Every decision our team makes (or does not make) has an impact that stretches much further than our own first-hand observations.
For example, what impact to the environment is made when a single truckload of metal is diverted from the landfill, and instead transported to a recycling center? What about ten truckloads of metal? One hundred truckloads? One thousand?
Similarly, what impact is made to our local community when our crew decides to donate just a few reusable items to a nearby charity? What about ten decisions to donate reusable items? One hundred decisions? One thousand?
By asking these questions, we begin to realize our impact potential; but how do we actualize this impact potential to consistently maximize our benefit and mitigate our detriment? The solution: our thorough Sustainability Checklist.
At Just-Take-It Hauling, every load of “junk” that our team removes is screened through our Sustainability Checklist:
Can any of the items in the load be donated or reused?
Yes: Transport the item(s) to a charity or pre-coordinated recipient.
No: Move to Step 2.
Can any of the items be recycled?
Yes: Transport the item(s) to a recycling center.
No: Move to Step 3.
Responsibly dispose of the remaining items at the proper waste disposal facility.
Briefly recall the two primary steps involved in the junk removal process: Removal and Disposal.
The Removal step is centered around customer service in the traditional sense. It typically looks a lot like the television or radio advertisement we envisioned earlier. The principal stakeholder, in that case, is the paying customer who hired the junk removal team to remove the items from their property.
The Disposal step, however, is centered around custodial service to the environment and the local community, which accounts for a much larger percentage of any junk removal company’s list of stakeholders than the paying customers themselves do.
Simply put, for any single one of our customers served during the Removal step, there are countless others who stand to gain from our ethical practices during the Disposal step. Therefore, it can be said that the majority of our stakeholders never hire us at all!
At Just-Take-It Hauling, the change that we choose to make begins with developing the right understanding of exactly who and what is at stake. Our mission extends so much further than simply “removing junk.”
Through consistent implementation of our Sustainability Checklist, we strive to serve all who have a vested interest, whether directly or indirectly, in the ethical operation of our business.
