BUSINESS WATCH:Waste not when moving assets

After spending a few years traveling as a private yacht captain, Corona del Mar High School graduate Kevin Kramer, 25, came home to join the family business.

For generations his family has been involved in the moving industry and Kramer was destined to become a driver for his dad’s Mayflower business. But after spending time on the water and out in nature, Kramer began to question if what he was doing — driving an 18-wheeler throughout the Western United States — was the right thing to do.

“These big trucks weigh 50,000 pounds and often are only moving 10,000 to 15,000 pounds,” Kramer said. “They are burning major diesel — it takes more to move the truck than the actual goods…. It’s completely inefficient for what it is.”

And an idea was born.

Now Kramer moves people using his new 18-wheelers that run on bio-diesel fuel through his new company GoGreenMoving.com.

Kramer is starting locally because the bio-diesel is something that is not widely used quite yet, something he hopes will change as other companies realize it’s a viable option.

But he’s not the only one around town concerned with the waste that moving companies generate.

A few years ago after moving his home office, Spencer Brown tried to find a place to recycle the $800 worth of cardboard boxes he used, but he just couldn’t get rid of them.

“I finally went to one of the local landfills and there was all this cardboard and plastic,” Brown said at his Costa Mesa office. “I had this ‘ah-ha’ moment that if we could provide some alternative to the boxes, we could get rid of all this waste.”

The product designer went to work researching the problem.

His research led him to start EarthFriendlyMoving.com, a company that uses plastic and cardboard from landfills to create ecologically sound alternatives to cardboard boxes, packing paper bubble wrap and similar cushions.

But Brown realized that convenience and cost are two other issues people take into consideration when they move, so Brown delivers his Recopaks and other products right to the homes of customers and his company will pick them up again after the move.

The boxes cost $1 per box, per week to rent. Brown also takes into consideration the fuel and energy used to make his products and developed a patented system on his delivery trucks. The trucks, like his car, are fueled by vegetable oil. The veggie oil also goes through a technical system that allows him to generate electricity on each of the trucks. The electricity powers the lift on the truck, as well as the machine that makes his replacement for bubble wrap, which is made from recycled cardboard.

For every 100 Recopaks rented, 256 pounds of trash are removed from landfills, which means 7,400 “bad” plastic containers are taken out of landfills, 600 diapers are used to make his moving pallets and three trees are saved, Brown said.

Brown and Kramer have now formed a strong referral relationship and often the homes Kramer moves using his bio-diesel powered trucks are renting boxes from Brown.

“The more I researched, the more I learned that in the last 230 years, the moving industry hasn’t changed … “ Brown said. “This is the first zero-waste solution.”