Wayne Opportunity Center happy with new shredding truck
By Ty Johnson
Published in News on December 16, 2012 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/TY JOHNSON
Wayne Opportunity Center Director John Chance explains the mechanism of the firm's new mobile shred truck.
There was a lot for Wayne Opportunity Center Director John Chance to celebrate Friday at his company's annual Christmas party -- and it had nothing to do with the event falling on his birthday this year.
As his clients danced around after their barbecue dinner, out back sat a truck that had been at the top of the center's Christmas list.
The $185,000 mobile shred truck made its first public appearance at the Goldsboro Jaycees Christmas Parade on Dec. 1, but local officials -- including Goldsboro City Council members who voted to purchase the truck -- gathered to dedicate the new equipment with a ribbon cutting to celebrate the center's foray into a new industry.
The mobile shredding business is intended to offset the revenue lost when Goldsboro decided in July to take its collected recyclables to Kemp Recyclers, more specifically to a subsidiary spin-off from Kemp called N.C. Waste and Recycling.
In May the city made its recycling changes to allow for commingled recycling, meaning all recyclable materials can be collected together and sorted later rather than having citizens do the sorting. The move to Kemp means the city can recoup a percentage of its recycling expenditures, but the potential impact on Wayne Opportunity Center was thought to be measured in jobs lost.
City Manager Scott Stevens said in April the city would do all it could to minimize the impact to the center's mission, which is to employ disabled clients, teaching them skills and paying them as employees.
The answer came in the form of the shred truck, which Chance said would allow the Center to keep its employees, even hiring an additional one.
And it wouldn't have been possible without the city's funding, he said.
"We could have never even thought about getting the shred truck without the city," he said.
Without the city's spotting of the $185,000, the Center would have likely needed to borrow money for the truck -- a precarious proposal, especially as a nonprofit making a speculative investment into a new industry.
Chance is encouraged by talks with a local business that may contract out a large shredding project to Wayne Opportunity Center -- a contract that could be worth as much as $15,000 annually.
The Center offers services on a smaller scale as well, providing secure roll-carts and executive consoles to clients for free to store documents. While many mobile shredding businesses base their prices on weight, the Center's shred truck generally charges flat fees. The truck will pick up and dispose of the documents for $25, and will shred banker's boxes of documents for $5 each.