Looking to make some extra money while studying architecture at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Bobby Bandy, 43, started a small recycling company. But when he left school he left that behind, focusing on his architecture career.

Recycling eventually drew him back, however, and he started EarthSavers in 2002.

“After being in architecture for several years, I decided it was time to go do some things on my own,” Bandy says. “I started with a pickup truck and about 28 customers. I had thought architecture would take off and this would just be steady income. But the reverse has actually happened.”

Bandy’s business had grown to about 2,000 customers, mostly residential but some business, including national clients like Starbucks.

Now, thanks to a contract with Oak Hill, his business has doubled. But to get the contract, Bandy was required to add trash removal to his list of services.

“Some laws have been passed recently that changes how waste collection happens in Davidson County, and one of those changes was to require waste haulers to provide a recycling option for all of the customers they haul waste for,” Bandy says. “So we talked to a few waste haulers to see if they would be interested in doing business with us, and nobody was interested.”

Instead of finding a partnership in which his company could handle recycling and another would stick to trash, he decided to just do it all himself.

“I realized I am competing against more people coming into the market,” he says. “We still believe we do recycling better than anybody else, but when you have the option for one bill for recycling and trash vs. two separate bills, then we knew we would be competing against that.”

It was the focus on recycling that resulted in the four-year contract.

“We explained to (Oak Hill) that we were a recycling company, not a trash company, but if that is what it took to get the recycling for their city, we would do trash as a secondary service,” he says, adding Oak Hill residents previously had to take plastic and paper to a recycling center.

Doubling business meant rapid growth for a company used to slow, steady increases.

“Starting trash wasn’t that difficult for us,” he says. “What was difficult for us was basically doubling overnight. And then, obviously when you pick up trash, that is a lot more volume, too.”

Bandy hired about five new employees simultaneously and had them learn on the job. He had several large trucks for recycling and purchased some compartmentalized trucks to enable one-stop pickups.

“It is what makes us different than any of the waste haulers out there,” he says. “If they are going to pick up trash, they send their crew in a truck to pick up trash. If they are going to pick up recycling, they are going to send another truck and another crew to pickup recycling.”

Bandy’s crew does it all in one stop, which saves money on everything from fuel to manpower.

Next for Bandy is food composting for the restaurant industry.

“That is something we are working on,” he says. “I feel like we have enough people coming to the table to talk that we have some options out there, so hopefully we can do something by the end of the year or early next year.”

Meanwhile, EarthSavers continues to offer a specialized recycling service, picking up glass and plastics other carriers won’t. The company accepts batteries, CFL light bulbs and electronics, relieving customers from yet another stop.

“We make it convenient and easy to do,” he says. “A lot of waste haulers have a one-size-fits-all program and they don’t take certain things because it is harder to educate the public. With our customers, they are paying for the service and they want to recycle as much as possible so we have an opportunity to educate them and then they can make purchasing decisions, if they so choose, based on what can be recycled and what cannot be.”