Why Leonardo DiCaprio is Supporting Rubicon Global

Most people don’t know much about garbage aside from the fact that it’s something they set outside once or twice a week. Or maybe that it’s the sort of business venture that Tony Soprano would enjoy. But the garbage industry is really just a grimier version of the real-estate business. In the past, Big Garbage has been dominated by two big firms, Waste Management and Republic Services, which essentially make their money by taking trash and putting it into a landfill. “They own these real-estate assets—landfills,” as Rubicon Global C.E.O. and co-founder Nate Morris put it to me. “They’re trying to take your garbage and put it into those assets and charge you a monthly rent fee.”

Rubicon, named for the river that Caesar mythically crossed, is quite literally a start-up in the garbage business. And it is attempting to disrupt the industry via the Uber model. Morris matches independent local garbage haulers with multi-national clients, and lets them schedule on-demand pickups for their trash through a proprietary technology. Perhaps most importantly, Rubicon taps into the social consciousness of companies who care about what happens to their waste. It sure isn’t glamorous, but it’s not exactly a crowded market, and Morris has his sights set on solving problems around sustainability and waste management.