Cal West leased 3,250sf at 4329 Park Road as of October 1.  Larry Hazard of CRS arranged the lease for Cal West and represented the building owner, Davies & Haumeder. 

Currently, Cal West has three employees in the Benicia office, which is run by sales manager Gary Dawson.  Mr. Williams plans to increase the staff as business increases. 

"There is quite a bit of waste up in northern California that fits the type of service we provide, which is full-service waste management," he explains.  "A lot of people need that.  They have piles of hazardous waste sitting around, waiting for someone to show them a good economical way to dispose of it." 

A broker-transporter

Cal West is what is called a broker-
transporter, according to Mr. Williams. 

"We select a facility that can handle the waste most efficiently and economically for a customer.  Say you have waste oil products, paint, and maintenance products, and someone else in Los Angeles has a sump from a shooting range.  We would pump that out for them and send each of these four waste streams to a different facility," he says. 

The company also does cleanup and closures.  For example, shutting down an R&D lab might include separating all the glass bottles, vials, and wide range of chemicals.  Those items would then be identified, classified, packaged, and transported to the proper facility for each item's disposal. 

Recycling hazardous waste

Mr. Williams points out that almost all waste now can be recycled, so it doesn't have to go into a landfill. 
 

"It doesn't have to go into a landfill and have the cradle-to-the-grave liability that waste generators have been faced with in the past," says Mr. Williams.  "We now have the technology to recycle economically all materials that we pick up - whether it's acid, metal-bearing waste, solvents, or thinners." 

Cal West has some 1,200 customers in southern California, including Tosco Research & Development Laboratories and many paint companies.  In northern California, Cal West handles waste for the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, U.S. Forest Service, and Urban Decay of Mountain View.

Promoting compliance

What Mr. Williams hopes to achieve with the Benicia operation is to get hazardous waste generators in northern California into compliance. 

"That's the main issue - to give them the right containers and the right advice on how to store and prepare waste and what is considered hazardous waste," he says.  "People need a lot of guidance in this area.  They don't realize that some of the things they throw out are considered hazardous waste in California." 

"It's nice to be able to do something that is good for where we live," he adds.  "We have tried to keep it economical for customers and provide them with first-class service.  They really don't need to know all about the hazardous waste industry; they just need to know how to handle hazardous waste in a way that is the most beneficial to the company and our planet." 
 

For more information, call 707-748-2330 or visit www.calwestenvironmental.com.