Sustainability, recycling - and cycling - is pair's mission

By Nina Mehlhaf, KTVZ.COM

All week, we've been profiling unusual and odd jobs in Central Oregon. Many viewers have sent in e-mails and called with ideas for other folks on the High Desert who have a quirky career. There are so many, it would take months just to meet them all.

We wrap up our special series with a look at two guys who've built a niche business that could literally go just about anywhere, now that it's taken off.

"Yeah, your legs get in pretty good shape doing this. I would bet a majority of people have seen me, but maybe they didn't know what I'm doing," says Daniel Brewster from atop his bike.

Brewster, of northwest Bend, considers himself lucky. Every single day, he hops on any one of his trusty two-wheelers and goes to work. But once he starts pedaling, it's as if he's punched the time clock.

"I've seen a couple companies like this online, and I love riding my bike. And I noticed Bend didn't have a sustainable delivery option, so one day I just decided to start one."

Together with a bike fitting the task, with locking, rain-tight compartment: "This thing is capable of carrying about 200 pounds."

And another with a full pull-behind trailer, Brewster created his own business, Cascade Couriers.

"We haul a variety of different types of cargo all by bike," he says. "Anything from diapers to periodicals to PO Box mail, and we also started a small-scale composting operation."

A former large-scale sign maker, Brewster has always been a bike lover.

"I wanted to be my own boss. I like the idea of doing things by bicycle," Brewster says. "I think it's cool to change people's ideas of what bikes can be used for."

Last summer, you may have even seen him move his entire house - mattresses, washer-dryer, boxes, you name it - all on bike trailers, with the help of 43 of his closest cycling friends.

"I think most people are shocked to see us hauling so much on bikes, but most people are really cool about it."

Every day, Brewster and his sole employee, Ben Hoover, make the rounds: contracting out with companies like Sweet Pea Diaper Service to drop off clean cloth diapers and bring the dirty ones back to the company.

They're also The Source Weekly's newspaper fairy on Wednesdays, pedaling 500 pounds worth of papers to their proper boxes all over town.

But when it comes to the stranger aspects of Cascade Couriers, that's where a few folks might be left spinning their wheels.

"Right now, we're going to make a few compost pickups. Today I have probably got 15-16 pick-ups."

Food composting is a process where food waste is collected and with the help of oxygen, naturally breaks down and absorbed back into the soil. Brewster's 80 compost customers put theirs in a bucket and pay around $13 a month for him to swing by…

"We've got some nasty stuff in here," says Brewster as he unloads a compost bucket into his bin. "Some bagels. So that just goes in the bin."

They pick it up and bike it out to vegetable farmers east of Bend, who till it into their soil.

"So it kind of completes the cycle," he says. "You go to the farmer's market and you get fruits and vegetables you eat, and whatever's leftover gets composted and goes back to the farmers."

"Putting it down the garbage disposal is putting some burden on the sewer system, throwing it away, it's not going to break down in a landfill because it's not getting the oxygen it needs," Brewster says. 

"So the thing about composting is it's so much easier to recycle food waste than pop bottles or cans, but it's just that people aren't thinking that yet."

Sustainability, recycling and cycling - it's the motto Daniel Brewster is excited to live by and it's catching on like wildfire.

Since he started Cascade Couriers in 2007, his customer base has steadily grown, and his courier services always evolving.

"I love it," said employee Ben Hoover. "It's nothing to complain about. I get to ride my bike around town for a living. It's an awesome way to make some money."

These guys have big dreams for Cascade Couriers. And who knows, Bend may be the perfect place to put the car in the garage and do everything by bike.

"It might seem idealistic, but I'd like to see 20-30 trailers out there picking up compost or just delivering stuff, I think that would be great," Brewster says. "It's just that people haven't seen this, so it's hard for them to think of it as a legitimate job. It does seem kind of odd, but it's a job and it's fun."

If you'd like more information on Cascade Couriers, you can check out their web site at www.cascadecouriers.com.

Central Oregon is the perfect place to branch out from the norm, do something unique and take a risk and start a business.

It seems we have so many neighbors who love to support local, home grown ideas, even if they are a little "odd."