Many investors are biased towards large businesses and for the most part as companies merge and grow to dominate the business, we tend to believe because of the resources behind it, they can generally make reasonably good decisions. Then along comes some foolish thinking that the company makes worse. If you were to place small rocks on the ground and put a small layer of dirt on it, then begin to pile garbage do you believe the run off from the garbage or leachate would go through the soil, through the rocks and into the land and water beside the rocks? That is generally why a dump particularly a mega dump needs to be on a strong clay based ground, placing a dump on limestone is foolish. To make a mega dump on limestone will mean the runoff of the stuff we are throw in the garbage will make its way into the rivers and streams around the dump. All mega dumps leak, the question is how much?

The above situation is the book Fighting Dirty by Poh-Gek Forkert published by Between the Lines, Toronto, 2017. The book is subtitled How a Small Community took on Big Trash. The writer was an advisor to the group fighting a small dump which became a regional dump which became a megadump. On the other side is the company Waste Management aided by the government. If you are in one of these fights, the book is worth reading.

Most of us believe for the most part, while people working for the government have a bias, they generally are on the side of what is known as the public interest. Companies have ideas, implement them badly and the government goes to the worst offenders and tries to change their ways to not be a bad corporate neighbor. It turned out in this story the government helped facilitate the bad decisions of Waste Management.

If a small organization wishes to take on a large corporate concern, besides people’s expertise, they will need to do much fundraising to offset the company’s ability to hire consultants who say it could be or there may be a risk, but it is limited risk. The other aspect is this fight took 10 years, that is a lot of time to volunteer to fight on one issue. On the company side never under estimate the people in the rural area – it may take some time for them to get up to speed, but when the basic decision can be seen as good and bad, they will win.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, when we buy shares we favor management and the business it is in. In the case of Waste Management, we all throw out garbage, it needs to go somewhere and we trust the company does the right thing with it. It this particular case, the dump was enlarged because the company owned land, the foundation was the problem. A matter of fact, after the company lost, they applied for a new dump beside the old one – the foundation was still the problem and the application was turned down. All companies make good and bad decisions, but doubling down on a bad one is still a bad decision and shareholders should advise management.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.