Dell Walker has been in business for some 30 years, hauling everything from rock and stone to sand and mulch. Today, his company, Enviro Recyclers Inc., is primarily involved in hauling from transfer stations to landfills for Waste Industries in the Fairburn, Georgia, area, south of Atlanta.

It’s an intrastate company, generally hauling within 100 miles with about 25 Mack trucks and about 30 East trailers.

“I grow my company in my area whenever [Waste Industries is] growing their company,” Walker explains. Waste industries owns landfills and transfer stations. “They’re also into recycling, so we haul recycling with our trailers also. Cardboard, glass, plastic, stuff like that we do haul with our trailers.”

And for all his business, Walker uses East trailers, citing dependability, resale value, and customer service as key factors in his choice of company.

Charlie Benton, Walker’s sales rep at East, explains that Walker started out in the concrete business, hauling rock and stone. When that company sold, he opened up a transfer station, and sold it to Waste Industries — with the provision that he would haul the garbage.

“From point A to point B, we run about 90 miles from where we pick up the trash to the landfill,” Walker says. “These trailers deliver three to four loads a day and we run over 1,000 tons a day — about 25 tons per trailer load,” mostly residential trash.

“I want to haul as many tons on a trailer as I can” and still stay legal, he says. “That’s why aluminum is the only way to go.”

He uses the East Genesis aluminum refuse trailer for his transfer station operations for a number of reasons. Foremost is the light weight of the aluminum trailer. “With a lighter trailer you can haul more of the payload, having a lighter trailer that’s strong enough to handle the weight,” Walker explains.

Durability’s important when you’re hauling into landfills. In fact, he has a few East trailers that are 15 years old, although most of them he keeps for 10 to 12.

“Refuse trailers, they take a beating because they go into landfills, and landfills are rough,” Walker says. “It’s amazing the conditions they go through. They work rain or shine, it doesn’t matter.”

The Genesis Walker uses is a smooth-sided aluminum tipper trailer. Compared to a traditional ribbed external-post trailer, it’s more aerodynamic and easier to clean (important for trailers that go into landfills), and it won’t show any pings and dings on the outside from cargo like traditional external post walls. Plus the outboard Genesis design provides more capacity than traditional external post trailers, according to East, which along with the light weight of the aluminum allows for more payload.

In addition to the refuse business, Walker’s company hauls wood chips for Pratt Industries, using East trailers with live floors to unload the wood chips at power plants where they’re burned to produce power. And he uses East steel dump trailers for construction work.

When Walker is evaluating what trailers to buy, it’s not just the product itself that matters. “There are other brands, but East seems to be the one that always has my back whenever I have issues.”

And with business picking up, Walker’s buying more trailers this year, both to expand his business and to replace older trailers. “[Business has] gotten better the last couple of years; the banks are starting to loan money again,” he says. In fact, when we spoke in October, he was planning to pick up a new one the following week.