Under wraps

Coastal Waste & Recycling thinks of its fleet of trucks as moving billboards and its drivers as marketing representatives of the company. By customizing select trucks in vinyl vehicle wraps, the Boca Raton, Florida-based solid waste disposal and recycling company has found a highly visible way to communicate its core values.

“The idea originally to start wrapping our trucks was to give more exposure to our brand and to the types of things that matter to us as a company from a cultural, community support standpoint,” explains Patti Hamilton, Coastal vice president of brand and culture.

The first wave of truck wraps introduced reflected the company’s deep appreciation for veterans and the military. Designs representing the United States armed forces honor the men and women who have served and currently serve in the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard or Air Force. Often, the truck’s driver is a veteran—Coastal has a lot of veterans on the team, Hamilton says—or perhaps the driver has a child deployed.

The military-themed truck wraps got such a great response, Hamilton says, the initiative “just kind of snowballed.”

Coastal Waste introduced pink truck wraps for breast cancer awareness during a time when three employees were going through breast cancer treatment. The pink wrap emblazoned with a breast cancer awareness ribbon has become one of the company’s most recognizable trucks, Hamilton says.

A newer wrap recognizes autism awareness because a member of the team has a child with autism.

Getting one of the wrapped trucks has become a bit of a badge of honor for Coastal Waste’s drivers, Hamilton says, and it’s part of a companywide effort focused on clean and well-maintained trucks.

“The more focus we put on the driver taking care of their truck, the better maintained fleet we have,” she says.

The invitation to drive a wrapped truck has become an incentive for drivers. To be awarded a wrapped truck, drivers must meet performance-based qualifications and guidelines as well as meeting company standards. Standards follow criteria similar to those used to choose drivers of the month in each service area, based on attendance, cleanliness of their assigned trucks, maintaining a professional appearance and being in uniform, zero complaints on route, no accidents and safety ratings, as well as being recommended by a supervisor or a customer.

Focus on the people

When it comes to company culture, Coastal Waste prides itself on putting the focus on its people, Hamilton says, and that people-first approach has informed each of the very purposeful decisions to introduce a new truck wrap.

“It validates what we say and teach, that we really do care,” Hamilton says. “Certainly, the breast cancer truck touched very strongly the lives of those three women [whom] we dedicated that truck to. They take a lot of pride in the support they received and seeing how much their team cares about them.”

Coastal Waste supports a Florida-based nonprofit organization called RememberEveryoneDeployed.org, shortened as R.E.D., to show solidarity and provide support to deployed service members as well as veterans of all branches of the U.S. armed forces. After wrapping the first few military trucks, Coastal joined forces with R.E.D. Along with displaying outdoor banners at every site, the company introduced a red uniform shirt to support the program and Hamilton says a majority of Coastal employees wear red every Friday to show support.

Future is electric

Coastal Waste & Recycling is a privately owned, locally operated solid waste disposal and recycling company with 25 locations across Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. The company operates more than 800 trucks, including rear-load, front-load and side-load residential models, in addition to roll-off industrial, grapple compactors and a full line of front-load commercial trucks, as well as a fleet of tractor-trailers, pickup trucks and service trucks.

In February, Coastal became the first privately owned company in Florida to purchase an electric refuse truck. Greensboro, North Carolina-based Mack Trucks delivered a Mack LR Electric Class 8 refuse vehicle, which is being deployed on routes in Pompano Beach. Coastal Waste also is piloting a Volvo CE EC230 Electric 23-ton excavator.

“We are excited to add both pieces of equipment to our fleet,” says CEO Brendon Pantano. “As the first private hauler in Florida to invest in electric, we look forward to harnessing the strength of this strategic move to further elevate innovation in our operations.”

The Mack LR Electric truck will operate in residential and certain commercial applications in southern Florida, and the excavator will be employed at the Pompano Beach material recovery facility.

Brand standards

Along with communicating corporate values, the wrapping program reflects Coastal’s fierce brand standards, which extend to sending out trucks that are extremely clean and well-maintained.

“We have very tight brand standards around the fleet team, making sure that every single truck is labeled exactly the same, based on the truck model. Nothing deviates,” Hamilton says. “Our fleet management, fleet director and each district manager understands those brand standards. That brand standard guide is critical to maintaining our brand.”

While Hamilton admits the wrapping decisions have not always had a lot of rhyme or reason, Coastal plans to establish a more formalized program to wrap more trucks.

The wrapping initiative, in its third year, has been received positively by the community, and Hamilton says the company often hears from residents saying the theme of the truck touched their hearts. Drivers have responded with enthusiasm as well, she says.

“Certainly, those who get chosen to drive them really feel as though they’ve been rewarded,” Hamilton says. “The trucks are their offices. That’s their workplace. Our drivers take a lot of pride in the trucks.”

The author is managing editor of Waste Today and can be contacted at smann@gie.net.