Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 8, 1992 TAG: 9203070044
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA BROWN KELLY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The significance of its timing is that it arrived about six weeks after the Illinois-based Waste Management Inc. became a hauler in the Roanoke Valley.
"I know Waste Management," said Walter S. Bandurski Sr. "The company is a good competitor."
Bandurski said he also plans to be a good competitor in the Roanoke Valley solid waste hauling business.
He thinks his company has an advantage over WMI because it has been here for seven years. His first office in the Roanoke Valley was in Daleville. The company now is in the Norwich section of Southwest Roanoke.
The new front-loading truck means Virginia Container now can pick up trash bins and empty them into a truck bed. Before, it subcontracted those pickups from its customers to Cycle Systems Inc.
Waste Management bought Cycle Systems' hauling division.
The front-loader also increases Virginia Container's potential for business, said its owner.
Virginia Container is the smallest of the valley's three main solid waste haulers. In 1991, it hauled 12,338 tons of waste to the Roanoke landfill, about 6 percent of the total dumped. Cycle Systems, and now WMI, hauled 21 percent and Handy Dump, 18 percent.
Since its arrival, Virginia Container's main customer has been Norfolk Southern Corp.
Bandurski, the sole owner and officer of Virginia Container, describes himself as a self-man made, a school dropout who grew up in the waste business.
He also owns the Walter S. Bandurski Sr. Inc. solid waste hauling company in Wilmington, Del., which has 35 employees. It serves 2,000 commercial-industrial accounts and more than 15,000 residences in the Wilmington and Dover areas.
The Delaware company also has an office in Dover, and a companion company, Arrow Disposal Inc., which services Dover Air Force Base.
Despite the arrival of a major hauling company, Bandurski said Roanoke's hauling competition is still limited. Large cities can have as many as 20 to 30 waste removal companies.
Bandurski and his Delaware sales manager Kirk Armstrong, have spent more time in Roanoke in recent weeks.
They said they have been interviewing applicants for sales and customer service jobs as part of the company's plans for expansion.
by CNB