Triack Turns Trash Into Cash

Squamish’s Triack Resources represents a new breed of greener entrepreneur.

On paper, logger Dave McRae looks like an unlikely champion of eco-business. With stints as a heavy duty mechanic and work in a saw mill, he ended up as an expert in sustainable forest practices. His forestry skills landed him several unique contracts during his career including thinning of Alice Lake campground, the Brohm Lake demonstration forest and cutting runs at Whistler Blackcomb.

“We have done a lot of logging that required a public persona of environment friendly and long term thinking on the part of the owner of the land”.

It seems sustainability and green business practices have been front of his mind long before the recent groundswell of corporate interest in this seemingly new eco-business trend. Since 1988, McRae has been working on plans to create markets for the waste. Perhaps the world is finally ready for his vision?

Triack charges a fee to companies that want an alternative to hauling the waste to a landfill. His business model relies on his own ingenuity by creating win-win with his customers. If he didn’t manufacture and market his own products from the waste, the hauling process alone would create a loss for the company. In turn his customers can pay less for disposal than at the District dump.

Currently Triack offers services that are not commonplace in the Sea to Sky corridor. Boasting a wood waste recycling facility on Government road in Squamish that accepts pretty much any organic material and even asphalt, Mcrae feels the days of burning waste, both at the District landfill and other job sites, are numbered.

“We take approximately 75% of the waste from AJ Forest Products and Fraserwood Industries that used to go in the District Landfill.”

The waste from Quest University and the expansion of the Industrial Park are two more examples of projects that would have been burned.

Triack can manufacture a number of innovative things with this waste including soil for landscapers, bedding for animals or even electricity. Wood grindings are used as a low-cost bio mass fuel for co-gen systems located in Vancouver. This green power is used to make pulp and paper. These systems use steam and heat to generate electricity and produces very little CO2 in the process.

“Co-gen one of the most efficient ways to create energy from waste wood products”

Now with a stable of industrial clients, McRae has set his sights on builders and even the average citizen. His one year old wood waste plant provides a great deal of opportunity for Triack as Squamish and Whistler’s building boom continues.

“We can take yard waste,old fences or wooden decks. Our tipping fee is $6/yard which is significantly lower than the District land fill. We hope people start to feel like it’s easier to dump their waste with us than to burn it. As the corridor expands we hope that there will be less and less burning and more recycling.“