Jay Brenner, a co-founder of Atlanta startup WasteWizer, transformed his pool house into a laboratory after the pandemic took hold.
WasteWizer produces industrial scales for waste containers that weigh its contents and send that information into a cloud server. That technology allows companies to know in real time when the container is full, meaning they can more efficiently schedule when to pick up the containers from places such as construction sites, Brenner said.
Co-founder Thomas Spencer created the first prototype in Georgia Tech labs, but when those shut down and reduced capacity because of the pandemic, operations went poolside.
“We had to reprioritize our timelines a little bit,” Spencer said. “But now we get to get a little bit of sun while doing some testing next to [Brenner’s] pool.”
WasteWizer, founded in 2019, is still working on developing and testing its product, which is set to go into the field in 2021, Brenner said. WasteWizer devices are currently being tested at Peachtree Corner’s Curiosity Labs, a Redbox+ waste hauler site and at an Atlanta scrap processor.
The company is bootstrapped and came out of Georgia Tech’s CREATE-X incubator and is an ATDC Accelerate company.
The company got started after Spencer brought his prototype to co-founder Mark Lucas, who founded Firefighter Dumpsters and needed a way to manage the inventory of the waste containers. The company had to wait until customers called to say the dumpster was full, which either led to delays in picking up full dumpsters or overflowing.
Brenner, who has 30 years of experience in the waste industry, was looking for a similar solution. Brenner said his partner was happy on the days when he ran out of inventory of his waste containers, but Brenner saw that as a missed opportunity.
“The containers could be sitting there full, and you wouldn’t know until the customer calls,” Brenner said. “When he started calling the customers, he realized about 20% of them were actually ready to be picked up. When you turn these things over, you make more money.”
Those three came together with Patrick Doyle, a Georgia Tech graduate who helps integrate the hardware and the software, to found WasteWizer.
WasteWizer is currently working on refining and rolling out the device, but the founders see other uses for it beyond waste containers. For example, the device can be used to make sure railcars are not overloaded, which could cause safety concerns.
“We want to explore other options but also stay focused on making sure our core technology is as accurate and reliable as possible,” Spencer said.
