Based on the logical principle that every business wants to save money on purchases and reduce waste costs, a family business in Rockport, east of Gananoque, has developed software that offers organizations the ability to reduce, to reuse and recycle.
“We provide zero-waste tools that increase the value of surplus items and materials, converting them from liabilities to assets,” says Norm Ruttan, President of iWasteNot.
The company has developed several software applications that it markets to various organizations, companies and institutions. ReCap (short for recapture) helps organizations reuse items internally instead of paying to dispose of them and spending to replace them. The Surplus Marketplace platform does the same thing, but between organizations.
Finally, the Recyclopedia is a guide to “what to do with it when you’re done with it”. As the name suggests, it is an encyclopedia of items that can be recycled and are in the region of the person subscribing to the software.
“So there are topics like ‘paper’ or ‘aluminum cans’ and then the topic connects to solutions, so it’s supposed to be a very easy process for the user,” says Ruttan’s son James. Ruttan, CEO of iWasteNot. The software uses a translation service in 100 languages and is designed to be accessible.
“We put the service online and keep it running 365 days a year…and we usually give the customer an admin panel, so they can manage it and answer their questions,” says Norm. Ruttan.
The Recyclopedia allows any organization in the recycling business to log on to the site for free and list services, hours of operation and limitations. Registration must be approved by the organization subscribing to the software.
“Then, the rating organization that enters his information has control of it and once a year the system sends him an e-mail asking him: ‘Is this information still good?’, adds James Ruttan.
Customers include the Recycling Council of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University and the University of Manitoba, which use ReCap software to recycle office furniture within the university community and track waste diversion.
“We use waste data collected through the swap function on the website to track the weight of furniture and the number of items we divert from landfill via reuse within the university community,” says Allison. MacIntyre, zero waste coordinator at the University of Manitoba. .
The software is customized for the client. “iWasteNot has tailored our website to work for our specific needs, including adding item weights, item measurements, and disposal forms specific to our campus operations,” adds MacIntyre.
iWasteNot Systems has a team of seven programmers and a total staff of 17 employees across Canada, Mexico and Bangladesh. “Part of what we want to do is not just what we achieve in the marketplace, but we want to be a great place to work,” says James Ruttan.
In operation since 2004, the journey has not always been easy for iWasteNot. At one point, the company ran into connectivity issues that nearly caused it to leave the Municipality of Leeds and the Thousand Islands.
Once that was fixed, it reached a point where it had to completely revamp its products. “We got to the point that, rather than keep changing the software to try to make it work with the new, updated internet, we went back to square one and started rebuilding it from scratch,” says Norm Ruttan.
It took a huge investment of dollars and time and by then other free platforms like Kijiji and Facebook Marketplace had sprung up and many of iWasteNot’s original customers had disappeared.
“We felt we were so close to launching new software that we could be proud of it. We just simmered, kept our costs low, plugged in…and waited to see if we could take a break,” laughs Norm Ruttan. .
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