{"id":15872,"date":"2018-05-02T13:11:09","date_gmt":"2018-05-02T20:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=15872"},"modified":"2018-05-07T09:31:25","modified_gmt":"2018-05-07T16:31:25","slug":"former-camosun-student-proves-donating-time-can-be-as-valuable-as-donating-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2018\/05\/02\/former-camosun-student-proves-donating-time-can-be-as-valuable-as-donating-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Camosun student proves donating time can be as valuable as donating money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Camosun business student Aaron Lawson takes great pride in reducing the amount of garbage that ends up in the landfill, despite the fact that he co-owns a junk hauling business, Atlas Junk Removal. Lawson\u2014who was at Camosun from 2011 to 2014 but left because business was booming and he was learning so much on the job\u2014says the business tries to divert as much junk as they can instead of going to the landfill and just tipping the truck out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work with quite a few different places\u2014like Salvation Army, Value Village, ReStore\u2014to repurpose as much of the stuff that\u2019s still good as we can,\u201d says Lawson. \u201cAnd then, from there, if we can\u2019t get rid of it through those means then we look at it for its raw materials, like steel, paper, cardboard\u2014anything that can be recycled. From there, anything that\u2019s left over we dispose of as best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Atlas Junk Removal diverts as much waste as possible from the landfill (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lawson and his business partner Wesley Colwell always knew they wanted to do something to help out the community. As the two young entrepreneurs were starting their business, they didn\u2019t have the funds to donate, so they decided to give back in a different way.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were struggling with how do we give back as much as we can because we don\u2019t have a big chunk of cash that we can say, \u2018Hey, we donated this much to a cause we support,\u2019\u201d says Lawson. \u201cBut, we had a ton of time as we were growing.\u201d<\/p>\n

In early 2015, the two heard about Vancouver Island Surfrider Foundation, a group focused on cleaning up the beaches of the lower island, while listening to the radio.<\/p>\n

\u201cWes had said, \u2018Maybe we should reach out and see if they have anyone who helps them with cleanups already,\u2019\u201d says Lawson. \u201cIt was just good timing, because at the time we were really early on in the business and didn\u2019t have a lot of money to get involved in the community at all, but that was something we wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two began volunteering to sort and haul the materials from the cleanups, using their environmentally savvy skills to dispose of the waste. Three years later, Lawson can appreciate the symbiotic growth between Atlas Junk Removal and Vancouver Island Surfrider Foundation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when we were first helping them, there were maybe 10 to 12 volunteers out to the cleanups. And now, at the most recent one they just had, [there were] over 200. So it\u2019s been cool because they can get a ton of people out, focus on that side of things, getting people to attend the cleanups and we handle the disposal of everything. So there\u2019s never a time where they\u2019re like, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s great that we found that washed-up boat on the beach, but we can\u2019t really get rid of it just due to its size and how much stuff has been accumulated.\u2019 They have no cap on that now, which is really cool that we can help them out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Atlas Junk Removal uses scales as opposed to space to determine the cost of their services, so it\u2019s no surprise they have weight on the brain when it comes to helping out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve done almost 24,000 pounds since 2015,\u201d says Lawson. \u201cAnd that\u2019s just beaches in Victoria.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Former Camosun business student Aaron Lawson takes great pride in reducing the amount of garbage that ends up in the landfill, despite the fact that he co-owns a junk hauling business, Atlas Junk Removal. Lawson\u2014who was at Camosun from 2011 to 2014 but left because business was booming and he was learning so much on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15873,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15874,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15872\/revisions\/15874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}