RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS
Ecology Action Centre
The right thing to do Prioritizing the environment key to responsible, sustainable business By Sara Ericsson
O
ne man’s trash is another man’s reusable, reducible or recyclable material. Just ask Chris Willison, Co-owner and Director of Junk Works Halifax, which he started with the idea of one day passing it onto his son and daughter. He says he knew from the moment he thought of the idea that there’d be no point in starting it unless it operated under what he’s dubbed “the proper and right way” to run a business: focusing on being environmentally responsible so that the business can sustain itself and the environment. “There was no way I was going to start a business [otherwise]. I wanted to start a business that my children [Andrew and Emma] could one day run — it wouldn’t have been right if it wasn’t environmentally responsible,” says Willison. “There’s a lot of waste going on in the world. But the more we can divert and keep out of landfills, the more we do our bit, the more normal it becomes. This is a fundamental pillar of our business.”
I wanted to start a business that my children [Andrew and Emma] could one day run — it wouldn’t have been right if it wasn’t environmentally responsible.” — Chris Willison,
Co-owner & Director, Junk Works Halifax
BUSINESS VOICE
A CIRCULAR APPROACH Willison runs Junk Works, a full and self-service junk hauling and removal for both residential and commercial customers alongside his fellow Co-owner, Director and wife, Sherry. Willison says that despite many of his industry competitors claiming to recycle much of the materials they collect, the evidence he’s seen doesn’t back that up. The Junk Works business utilizes a warehouse space outside its facility, where the items its trucks have collected are brought and then separated into materials that can be reused, repurposed or recycled. Willison says the percentage of materials he is able to repurpose in some way can reach as high as 90 per cent as its staff sort materials into categories like metal, paper, textiles, furniture and appliances. The Junk Works website states raw materials from these collections can later be used to manufacture items including car bumpers, paper towels, newspapers, steel cans, laundry detergent bottles, 19
