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Dunk Disposal’s bike pick up returns on June 29

June 23, 2022   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

The Dunk Disposal team will be out again to collect unwanted bikes or bikes in need of repair to pass on to Heartbeat Bikes, a not-for-profit organization in Brampton that repairs and rejuvenates bikes. The refurbished bikes are then sold back into the community, for anyone in need of a bike for an extremely reasonable price. They also run workshops on how to repair your own bike on specific Saturday mornings. They run this service from the parking lot of Heart Lake Baptist Church on Kennedy Road in Brampton, as a completely separate entity. 

Heartbeat Bikes and Dunk Disposal have been partnering on this annual pick up around the Orangeville and Shelburne area for two years; this is Dunk’s third year with the project.

An email to the Citizen from the disposal business explained that the Dunk Disposal team picked up 100 bikes last year and they hope to beat that number by fetching 150 bikes this year. To that point, they are expanding their area of pick up, including Orangeville, Erin, Shelburne, Caledon and Brampton.

This is one of the many days during the year when Dunk Disposal volunteers and gives back to the community. This has been a key policy to their business since they began more than five years ago.

Dunk Disposal founder, Cameron Dunkerley told the Citizen, “Business has been going well. This is the busiest time of year; we’re helping out homeowners and small businesses completely clean out areas of rubbish. This is the time of year when we’re getting rid of hot tubs. They’re just money pits. People are moving into and out of houses and want to get rid of them. We see a lot of hot tubs just sitting, not used.”

With the increase in this particular item, Mr. Dunkerley told us that to dispose of a hot tub is different because of how they are treated. In short, they are truly garbage with few parts that can be recycled. Some are so water logged or damaged by animals that there is nothing left but refuse. Finding alternatives to landfills is something Dunk Disposal’s staff focus on as they sort out stuff on their own before heading to the recycling stations.

They have begun to notice members of the community sort their garbage. Customers ask them if they also sort that garbage. Whenever they collect, the best that they do is just “breaking stuff down. When there is recycling stuff that’s been contaminated, this has to be done correctly or you’re wasting your time.”

One thing they have noticed is that they are doing a lot more pre- and post- moving. Here again, they do their best to dispose responsibly.

Says Cameron Dunkerley, “We do massive clean ups, whole homes and the increase has been relative to our growth as a company with more marketing and a better brand. We have three trucks now. I have enjoyed growing the business.”

With the expansion of the company comes the hunt for crew members.

“We are a larger team of people,” he said. “A crew of a couple of guys and we are hiring currently as well. It’s tough to find people to pursue it and who want to work but it’s good work and there’s a lot of benefits. We’re a young and motivated team and we get to have fun while we’re working hard and getting paid to do it. We offer competitive wages and other opportunities to participate in social media campaigns; we have fun doing guerrilla marketing, which is unorthodox marketing – something painted on the sidewalk, a cool video.

“We engage our staff as much as possible in our food drive, community clean-up,” Dunkerley added.

It was his close friend, Jared Eggengoor who owns and runs Heartbeat Bikes for whom Dunk Disposal began to volunteer for the annual bike drive.

“When you there, he is the one who runs the shop,” he told the Citizen.

Heartbeat Bikes is a repair service where people can bring their bikes to be repaired for a very reasonable fee; they also accept donations of bikes which they clean and repair as needed and sell at a “super reasonable cost; same with the bike fees but super affordable rates.” 

At Heartbeat, at-risk youth are also invited there to develop learning skills in caring for bikes. Heartbeat Bikes is separate from the church that owns the parking lot where Heartbeat works. It is its own company. They are there to repair the bikes and give back to the community.

When Mr. Dunkerley was extolling reasons to work for his company, he promised, “There is something new every single day. We are never doing the same thing over and over again.”

The bike drive is set for June 29. To arrange a pick-up time please email dunkdisposal@gmail.com, or call 519-217-7149.

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