An online construction and demolition waste platform is looking to shake up the industry’s largely analog world. The website allows disposal and recycling sites to connect with buyers for a range of materials, including gravel, asphalt, brush and other C&D materials, in a consolidated online platform.

Bulk Exchange was founded by construction veterans Paul Foley and Dustin Liebman in 2020. The two had grown frustrated that finding disposal sites for projects or commonly recycled construction materials still relied on word of mouth or brokers with their own agenda.

"People joke about it — we work in stone and we’re stuck in the Stone Age," Foley said. "The industry knows change is coming."

The platform raised $4.5 million in seed funding, including from the founder of California-based hauler Junk King, and quietly launched in February. Bulk Exchange is focused on sites in California, where the founders are based, but Foley said his goal is to take the online platform national. Many waste and recycling companies are already listed on the platform include WM, Republic Services, Recology and GreenWaste.

Bulk Exchange's website allows customers to search for construction materials, a facility that can dispose of them or both. The platform allows users to specify the kinds of materials they're looking to dump or acquire and the tonnage, and it offers immediate pricing data from facilities that have already been added. Customers can then reach out to those facility operators through Bulk Exchange with questions or to move forward with a contract for the materials. 

GreenWaste has added its C&D and organics processing facilities in Northern California to the platform. Bulk Exchange first reached out to the company two years ago when they were still developing the platform, said Jerame Renteria, GreenWaste's director of marketing.

Renteria said having a presence on Bulk Exchange goes a long way toward telling the company's story in facilitating a closed loop for materials. For instance, a customer looking to dispose of lumber can find GreenWaste's pricing for inbound materials at its resource recovery facilities. Once the company receives the lumber, it can turn that material into mulch. Then, customers looking to buy mulch could find the price for that material on Bulk Exchange as well.

"That completes the cycle of a domestic recycling market from the construction and demolition side of the business," Renteria said. "Having a place where people can see all the services we provide without me having to segment the story, I think that’s what made it very special for me."

Renteria noted it's still early to judge the platform’s success. But he hopes that as more customers begin using it, business leads will come to him through Bulk Exchange rather than through sending out sales representatives to find business. 

"This is something I haven’t seen before," Renteria said. "I’ve been in the industry 12-plus years and I haven’t had the opportunity to put my pricing all in one place outside of my own website."

In the near term, Bulk Exchange’s biggest challenge is overcoming inertia with customers. Already, though, it’s made progress, partnering with HCSS to integrate with the company’s estimating software for civil contractors. 

Bulk Exchange is planning to cover all of California as well as major markets in Texas, Florida and the Northeast by the end of this year. By 2025, it’s hoping to serve markets across the country. 

For Foley, who first got into the industry by joining his father on job sites near his home in Ireland, launching Bulk Exchange marks a long overdue shift in how materials are managed in the C&D supply chain.

“The rock will still get blasted … the building will get demolished,” Foley said. “But how information is sourced and how it is shared, that’s what is changing rapidly.”