Gerald Belanger

Gerald Belanger was just 19 years old, a college student studying business management, when he began working at Superior Medical Waste Disposal LLC, a Canton, Michigan-based hazardous waste disposal company started by his grandfather.

Belanger came on in a part-time capacity as the company’s first and, at the time, only employee to help drive trucks and service accounts with small companies including dentist offices, veterinary practices and tattoo parlors.

“I saw an opportunity in it,” Belanger says. “I thought I could really help him grow the company, and that’s what I did.”

In 2016, Belanger purchased the company from his grandfather and has owned it since then. As CEO, Belanger expanded Superior, going from one driver to five and servicing more than 2,000 accounts across Michigan, Ohio and Indiana. Belanger has grown the company organically and through acquisitions, including one in 2023, and has plans to continue to grow steadily and potentially expand beyond the Midwest.

"Be prepared to get dirty. A lot of people don’t want to do it because it is a dirty job, so there’s an opportunity for you there. … Not everyone wants to get on a garbage truck.”

Waste Today (WT): What surprises people about how medical waste is handled?

Gerald Belanger (GB): Most people think the majority of medical waste is incinerated. And, really, we don’t burn it; it doesn’t turn to ash. We use an autoclave process, a steam-heat process that kind of melts the waste down through high pressure and steam and very, very high temperatures. And that’s to prevent toxins from going into the air from incinerators.

WT: What are some of the challenges you face in managing medical waste?

GB: Some issues we run into with medical waste management would be on the producer side. For the healthcare professionals who are producing their medical waste, there can be a lot of confusion in terms of … what medical waste is. It’s kind of a generic term. There are legal definitions of medical waste and that change state by state, but a lot of waste that you might think is medical isn’t. Just because it’s produced in a medical facility doesn’t make it medical waste. So just getting the information across to our customers of what we can take and what we can help you handle can be a challenge.

Helping them understand how to segregate the waste and the proper handling of it all can be challenging. You want everything documented well, and you want to be doing everything in compliance at the state and the federal and local levels.

We’ve done a really good job at showing our health care professionals, giving them posters and physical stickers that they can hang up and show the staff and their new staff that comes in, this is what waste goes here, this is how we handle it.

WT: Any advice for professionals looking to get into the industry?

GB: Be prepared to get dirty. It’s going to take a lot of work. A lot of people don’t want to do it because it is a dirty job, so there’s an opportunity for you there. … Not everyone wants to get on a garbage truck or hazardous waste truck and deal with it. The benefit is there are a lot of different waste fields to get into and different industries you can do, from regular municipal waste to medical waste, chemical waste [and] nuclear waste. There are a lot of different avenues to go down in the waste industry, so it is a good industry to get into one way or another.