Sarnia Paving Stone is expanding after 30 years in business.
Operations Manager Vincent Caschera said they started as a construction company, then expanded into trucking -- running a company known as SPS Trucking -- and this week they have officially opened The Waste Depot.
He said the facility at 456 McGregor Side Road will focus on reducing waste from entering landfills by accepting clean and contaminated soils from the general public and local contractors.
"We take out the concrete, bricks, metal, plastics, recyclables - pretty much separate anything possible to prevent it from going to the landfill - and then whatever is left, that being waste, we would take the rest to the landfill," said Caschera. "The contaminated soils will be tested on site and then brought to a radiation place so they can be cleaned and put back wherever they're needed and then the clean fill will either be sold for other projects or used for environmental restoration."
SPS currently employs about 50 people, and Caschera expects more will be hired for The Waste Depot -- which took over 1.5 years to receive Environmental Compliance Approval for air and noise.
"We're looking to hire five or six to start and then, depending how busy we are, around ten. We haul waste anyways, at our current business, so we'll be using all local drivers, local employees to dispatch to ship the waste to the landfills."
SPS also recently purchased the former Lambton Woodworks/Domi Logistics next door, which is now known as Vilati Group.
"They were about to close up shop in Sarnia and the jobs were being moved to Ohio, so we stepped in and we took over that company to save about ten jobs there. We're currently growing that business as well, so we have ten guys now and we're looking for more and as we gain more business, more traction, we're looking to just keep growing it."
Vilati Group assembles, refurbishes and cleans wood, plastic, metal pallets and containers, supplying warehousing pallets to any companies in need.
More information can be found on their website www.wastedepot.ca