Trash chutes may not be top of mind for many of us, but CHUTES International President Hadi Boustani has been revolutionizing the industry for nearly three decades, earning him recognition recently as one of the World Trade Center Institute’s 2023 Maryland Business Leadership Awards recipients.
Under his leadership, the company has expanded its product line to include a wide range of innovative trash chute solutions--many of which have been patented and represent significant advancements in the industry. CHUTES International's product line has evolved, as has its reach. Thanks to Boustani's efforts, the company now serves customers throughout the United States and internationally.
“Our team has worked tirelessly to develop innovative products and solutions that not only make debris removal more efficient, but also more environmentally friendly,” said Heidi Wood, Administrative Manager for CHUTES.
How It Started
Boustani bought CHUTES International in 1989. At that point, they only rented external steel chutes that were patented for high rise construction. In the early 90s, there was a pretty significant construction recession, so the business had to decide whether to cut back (they were already a small company) or expand. Heidi Wood explains, “Hadi has never been one to step back. Instead, we started renting plastic chutes, which are used for renovation work.”
Generally, when high rise construction falls off, renovation work seems to pick up. They were buying the plastic chutes from another manufacturing company and were running into issues with quality control and delays. They talked to a second company and ran into the same issues.
“So, we talked about designing and developing our own chutes system,” says Wood, and that’s what they did. They were later approached by the local general contractors, asking why they didn’t do internal chutes. (Internal chutes are for buildings like tall apartment buildings where trash goes through a chute and compiles in a single location.) So, again, they added internal chutes to their offerings, buying them from another manufacturing company. They had the same issues with quality control and delays that they’d had with the external chutes and decided to manufacture those as well.
Becoming a manufacturer of trash chutes, and not just a distributor, has opened a whole new set of doors for CHUTES. They currently have close to 700 plastic chutes dealers across the US selling their plastic trash chutes.
Manufacturing Innovation
CHUTES owner, Hadi Boustani, was recently recognized by the World Trade Center Institute, in part, for his innovation. Wood explained, “Continuous improvement is a manufacturing fundamental where you’re constantly looking to find even small ways to improve, to eliminate waste, create a more safe environment, and make your products better. It’s an ongoing process.”
For instance, with their internal chutes, they’ve created a “wave door” that allows a person to open the door to the trash chute without even touching it. The door is hands free, and a movement sensor makes it open automatically. A recent innovative creation is their Smart System that tracks all the floors of a building and notifies the building engineer if there is a problem with a trash chute. This helps eliminate problems with residents not being able to empty their trash.
Another innovation is a sorter at the bottom of the trash chute that helps with recycling. At the chute door, there is a button to let the system know if it’s trash or recyclables. At the end of the chute, the recyclables are diverted to the correct receptacles.
International Expansion
The other part of their recent award was for international expansion. “We’re still in our infancy,” said Wood. “We started some work in Mexico and had some partnerships that were developing, and we had just done a market research study in Columbia when COVID hit.”
Now that things are open, they are working with the Maryland Department of Commerce and reconnecting with their Mexican partners and communicating with Columbia. Production would remain in Charles County; it’s the technology and development that can be shared. Chutes are basically a tube and can be manufactured abroad. CHUTES would help with the design and if they wanted any of the systems described earlier, like the Smart System or wave system.
About the award, Wood said, “It was a surprise, a very welcome and pleasant surprise. It was our initial goal to get solid footing in the U.S., and we’re getting to that point now where we’re willing to take the next step.”
CHUTES International is a shining success story for Charles County. We covered them years ago when they decided to expand their operations locally. Check that blog here. We’re glad they stayed!
