Our History

In 1961, Bates Trucking founder, John Bates, Sr., started collecting garbage in Prince Georges County, Maryland as a private subscription business. He and his wife, Dorothy, went house to house signing up customers and picking up trash and garbage using an open-back trash truck.

During the 1970s four of the five Bates children worked for the company. Bates, Sr., was able to purchase two additional trash trucks, to continue growing his family-owned small business. Bruce Bates took control of the company in the late 1980s and aggressively established an impressive fleet of trucks, expanding and diversifying the business services to include a large residential and recycling foundation, as well as commercial and government services. Today, Bates Trucking has four (4) locations, serving Prince Georges, Montgomery, Anne Arundel and Eastern Shore MD, Northern VA, and the District of Columbia.

Despite all of the changes, one thing has remained the same: We are still a family owned company, that’s committed to providing our customers with the best service and pricing in the industry.

Currently Bates Trucking has more than 300 employees that make up their team of skilled, conscientious professionals with an average of seven (7) years experience in the waste management industry. Our senior managers average more than fifteen (15) years of service in the industry.