Owning a lugger ( bin ) truck
 

Does anybody have any information / experience with lugger or roll-on roll-off trucks ? Is it viable to be an owner op leased to a disposal company like Waste Management, who operate these trucks ? I'm curious to know what this sector of trucking is like.

It's like running a COD oil business. Very competative, cut throat. Lot of money to lay out in containers to get started. You can do ok with light homeowner boxes. These will produce the most profit. Heavy boxes will kill you. Sometimes they will cost more to dump then the money you make on them.

Thanks for your prompt response, Sidman.

I wasn't quite implying having one's own boxes and bins...just one's own lugger truck, leased to a company like Waste Management ( for eg ). What prospects does that hold ? What are the other big companies in this line of work ?

I don't know if any companies would do that. You could give it a shot.
I never heard any guys doing that for WM or the likes. I do know guys doing trash and recyclables in a walking floor or dump trailer.

Re: Owning a lugger ( bin ) truck
 

Waste Management doesn't lease in O/O's yet, they are still operating their own fleet of R/O's. However here are some companies that do lease in O/O's, on a national basis,

Philips Services Inc., http://www.pscnow.com/,
Oakley Trucking, http://www.bruceoakley.com/trucking.htm,
Maumee Express, http://www.mxiinc.com/page.aspx?p=trans_main, RinChem, http://www.rinchem.com/TransportationJob2.htm
Veolia, http://veoliaes.com/Home

Now...with Veolia, you have to specificly ask about leasing into them, because while they do lease in OTR O/O's, they do not advertise it. You lease into them, and haul for them. They are both the shipper and the consignee, under their O/O program. Also...they do not have, to my knowledge, local positions as an O/O, only OTR.

Now..if you want to learn the ropes on hauling Hazardous Wastes, I suggest one of these three, listed in what I consider to be the best order.

HazMat Enviromental Group Inc, http://www.hazmatinc.com/
Freehold Cartage Inc. http://www.freeholdcartage.com/
Triad Transportation Inc, http://www.triadtransport.com/

I know a guy that runs for WM with his own trucks. He parks them at the place I worked at up until a couple weeks ago. He has 4 trucks and mostly runs WM recycle boxes from grocery stores full of bottles and cans to a recycling center. He's very successful. He knows people so he had a in with WM, guys he worked with years ago at the same place and then the company lost the contract so everybody goes looking for jobs and some of them end up at WM. He bought 2 brand new trucks about 2 years ago and another about 1 year ago and he's about to replace the 4th one. He's never told me how much he make or anything but judging by his trucks and his personal truck and toys he's definitely well off.

Him and his guys start about 4:30am to do their routes and he gets done about 11:00am and goes home to relax. His guys get done about 2:00pm. I always give him crap about getting done so early and he just tells me "That's what happens when I'm my own boss". I don't know about his contract or anything but apparently it can be quite profitable. 8) 8)

Thanks a bunch, Txguy & TK. I'm in the process of examining all possible niches in trucking. I'm sure there must be quite a few ways to make good coin in trucking, apart from doing the standard OTR gig that most companies have on offer. Let's see what the future holds.

Once again thanks for all the info. You guys have given me much to chew on.

In my area roll-off business is good. I've noticed many guys start out with one truck and are now multiple truck operations. There's a guy in the next town over that about 6-7 years ago or so bought a 1 garbage truck. He started out doing curbside pick up. His wife would drive the truck and he'd be on the back picking up garbage. Now he has about 4 garbage trucks and about 5 or 6 roll-off trucks. Hard work definitely had a lot to do with it. 8) 8)

The hot thing around here is concrete washout bins, It's a rolloff bin thats only 2-3 foot deep and they put them on any and every job site that is pouring concrete so the mixers can washout in them. Then they haul it to a recycling plant. I know two guys that are O/O and do this and do well but it is a significant inve$tment up front. Maybe if this new wave of enviropidity has not hit your area yet you can get it started and reap the profits. The sooner people find out how toxic water and cement are the sooner you can make $. It is like the sandbag guys did a few years back, they pushed a law that says you have to have X amount of sandbags per sq. foot of job site rain or shine, so now builders have thousands of sandbags piled up for nothing. You may want to look at topsoil/fertilizer co.'s they use O/O roll offs here to move their bins.

enviropidity is the greatest new word I've heard in a long time :D thats all we hear anymore is carbon footprint this and carbon monoxide that I am about sick of it, I have half a mind to buy an older kenworth and use it to commute around town in just to pi $$ all the greeneys off.