
Can the ‘Uber of Trash’ Clean Up Its Own Business? - jeddawson
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-10-02/can-the-uber-of-trash-clean-up-its-own-business
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jeddawson
This is a really well done analysis of Rubicon's fundamental flaw and a huge
reason why you see the main players all owning landfills. Trash is simply too
profitable and easily corrupts any organization no matter how well intentioned
they start out. That corruption has clearly hit Rubicon's sales team at least
in some instances.

Not owning any of the "infrastructure" may seem like a huge positive from an
cost standpoint, but I think they'll have to invest and re-invent a lot of the
physical collection and processing tech in order to achieve their stated
recycling goals.

Optimizing how/when waste is collected through modern software is a massive
improvement and certainly we don't need to be collecting all materials every
week. So there are huge gains to be had there from an environmental
standpoint, but relying on infrastructure that is already optimized for moving
trash to a nearby landfill is going to really hold back any effort to increase
recycling rates.

I bet they can pull through this with all the funding they've received, but it
sure does seem like they're a classic brokerage firm that happens to make an
app for their haulers.

