Orange County Register

How much would you pay someone to clean out your garbage cans and keep the gunk out of the storm drains and ocean?

Carl Fernandez, an Anaheim Hills financial analyst, thinks people will pay in the neighborhood of $15.95 for one barrel, $12.95 for each additional barrel. Those are the basic prices charged for cleaning services by his company Bin Clean LLC in Anaheim Hills.

Bin Clean is a new concept in Southern California, Fernandez says, to clean, sanitize and deodorize residential waste bin containers while capturing the waste instead of washing it into the gutter and then into the storm drains.

Carl Fernandez demonstrates Bin Clean equipment

“With few alternatives, homeowners may unknowingly be contributing to our polluted urban-runoff problem by attempting to hose-out their own waste bins at the curb. This bacteria-infested runoff quickly enters our storm drains and proceeds directly into our rivers and oceans untreated,” Fernandez says.

For years Orange County water quality officials have worked on ways to keep pollution out of the storm drains. Cities and water districts limit urban runoff, and the Orange County Health Care Agency and the Orange County Sanitation District monitor bacteria levels in the near-shore ocean.

However, in this economy, lots of folks are cleaning their own carpets, pools and cars, let alone their own garbage cans. And Fernandez acknowledges, “When people are worried about their jobs, this may be a convenience and sales may build more slowly, but as the economy recovers, people will appreciate the environmental as well as personal benefits.”

The company recommends quarterly trash can cleaning but it also offers one-time service.

Bin Clean licenses its technology and turn-key business opportunity for people looking for side income or a full-time business. A license for 10 ZIP codes is $15,000 plus about $15,000 for high-pressure washing and filtration equipment to be installed in the licensee’s van.

Fernandez says he has already received licensing inquiries from as far away as Palm Springs and Glendale/Burbank.

“There are only four or five other companies doing this in the United States; it’s better known in the UK,” Fernandez says.

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