Meet Chase White | Sustainability Director & Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Chase White and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Chase, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
In the beginning, it was just me. The business was merely an experiment, who purpose and roles weren’t defined or even known yet.

As I began collecting inventory, and finding new clients, the workload increased dramatically. Adding workers meant new levels of CA compliance, more responsibilities and risk, as well as more oversight and dare I say more Micro-management.

By year 3 I was working 60-70 hours a week, and by year 5 up to 80 to 90 hours per week. But thats what it took to grow., I remember a few years in row I sacrificed the entire month of March, with no social activities, just to get through taxes and receipts after long work days.

It started to become clear that it would take at least 8 people to replace me and reduce my work load.. Those roles would come to be defined as Warehouse Manager, Accountant, Customer Service Representative, Transportation & Fleet Manager, Administrative Assistant, Creative Consultant, Workshop Foreman, Painter, Yard Crew & Trainer… more than 8.

In 2016, I found EO- the Entrepreneur Organization. They had an accelerator program designed to educate business owners, set goals and be accountable. The foundational idea being that you can’t sell your business, unless your business can run with out you. Wow. That seemed impossible. Step one was to stop answering my own phone. It took another 4 months to make that happen.

The challenge of delegating responsibilities, is that there has to be some level of training and guidelines available. So when I trained a new admin assistant or driver, I would say “write down everything you learned today,” and the training manual was born. After 10 years of being the personal trainer to every new employee, we invested in 10 training videos. One more responsibility delegated!

Now, 12 years later, my business ALMOST runs itself without me. The rental business, our primary source of income, is relatively hands off for me. I am no longer the first point of contact for clients which is a blessing. Now I can focus on strategy and growth, while working less than 30 hours per week.. but it took 12 years of sacrifice to finally have this freedom.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
My path in life changed when I hired someone to help pull off the first rental job. Seeing the relief they expressed as they were finally going to be able to make rent, really affected me. Having struggled financially most of my life as well, I now had thriving opportunity to create jobs and help others in need…just from recycling. By shifting the focus from working for myself to helping others, the business began to flourish. More employment opportunities meant we could recycle more materials. Our volume increased and the business began to scale up.

The funny thing is, no mater how good your intentions, someone always has to oppose it. The key is to turn this opposition into a strength.

Example 1: We began a public recyclables collection program in East Hollywood, CA. A Neighborhood Counsel member was opposed, saying we were taking valuable resources from people who lived on the street. Our solution? We began hiring from the Midnight Mission, a program that creates job opportunities for the unhoused, giving them renewed life experience and fresh work experience.

Example 2: Clients didn’t want to pay for our recycling services, claiming the the CRV refunds should sustain our growth. Our solution? Use the CRV refunds to mentor youth to make films. We partnered with the Environmental Charter High School of Lawndale, joining students on trips to Costa Rica and Brazil, putting cameras in their hands and recording their experiences.

These oppositions to our good will, empowered us. We shifted and become a Social Enterprise: a for-profit business whose mission became to support non-profits whose programs aligned with our resources.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Best Dancing: The Shortstop in Eco Park. Different vibes & tunes every night of the week! Free to get in, inexpensive drinks, and a great place to meet people.

Best Free Adventure:
Fairwind Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey. This Non-profit sailing club takes prospective members and guests out in the Santa Monica Bay one Saturday a month to enjoy local nature and the sea. All experience levels welcome!

Best Immersive Experience:
The Count’s Den in Downtown Los Angeles.
A never ending variety of shows that includes quirky vampires families, immersive art exhibits, outrageous burlesque, delectable dinner theatre, and much, much more.

Best Tiki Bar:
Tiki Ti.
Family owned with strong recipes, and great vibes. Get their early, its tiny!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Our success is due to 3 key players that encouraged our journey.

In 2011 I interviewed for a job with Eco Set. Their mission is to help productions be greener by providing onset sustainability solutions, as well as keeping set dressing, props, set walls and other resources out of the landfill. Although they didn’t hire me to work in the office, they brought me on as a consultant to assist with logistics on some large diversions. Along the way they said “Hey, why don’t you take some of this stuff and see what you can do with it.” This seeded my inventory, and gave me an established company to look up to, learn from, and model myself after.

Then along came Billy Jett, my first client. He worked in re-creation reality, and we coincidentally had worked with some of the same team from Unsolved Mysteries, and bonded instantly. Billy said, “You have to do this. There used to be a company called Re-Sets doing something similar,” but they didn’t exist anymore. Now I had my first client, combined with encouragement and proof that keeping movie sets out of the landfill could be a viable business. But how was I going to transport everything?

This question lead me to meeting with different transportation companies, telling them about my vision, and seeking partnerships. The only company to take me seriously was Western Studio Services. They not only had transportation, they also provided scenery storage for film productions.. disposing of 10s of thousands of square feet of inventory annually. I had hit the mother=load of reusable scenery with a way to transport it!

These three supporters led to our growth and development on the path to becoming a real business.

Website: www.recycledsets.com

Instagram: recycledsets

Image Credits
Susy Shearer