Our Story

The EMS Waste Services story dates right back to the 1940s, when Mr Alf Stuart bought a second-hand Dodge and began to transport cattle. From here, a family business was born.

By the time that brothers, Roy and Ross, were leaving school, the business had expanded enough to bring them on board and sales were thriving.

In 1968 the Stuarts were one of the first to buy one of the brand new Volvo F88s, marking their growth and the success of the cattle haulage operation. They used the F88 to pull the first double deck articulated cattle transporter in Great Britain, which was designed by Roy and Ross Stuart

In 1977 they were ready to expand again– opening a new garage repair business, Stuart’s Commercials, which became the official Volvo Truck Dealer for Devon.

By the 1980s, Stuart’s was ready to move out of the cattle haulage business and began growing their fledgling storage business– boosted unexpectedly by the Miner’s Strike of 1984.The enterprising family didn’t stop there however and by the end of the 80s, Roy had opened up an Inert Landfill Site at Hill Barton, spotting future growth opportunities in waste management.

In 1990 Roy’s son Troy joined the partnership to manage the Arable and Farm contracting.

Roy was left responsible for buying and managing the Beef units. Each year over 2500 cattle are finished providing Top Quality Beef to suppliers

Building on earlier success, the Stuarts’ garage business took over the Volvo Dealerships at Saltash and Redruth in Cornwall in 2004, relocating the Saltash depot to a new workshop in Plymouth and investing in improvements at the Redruth site.

The next milestone was during the summer of 2009. The recycling side of the business was hotting up, and the Stuarts acquired EMS Waste Services Ltd . Between 2012 and 2015 they brought Devon contract waste skips, AJS skips, ASAP skip hire and Bay skip into the fold, along with a new scrap site, strengthening the range of services offered to Devon customers.

2013 saw the introduction of a Vehicle operating Standards Authority (VOSA) Authorised Testing Facility (ATF) unit with two lanes at Hill Barton Business Park, Exeter which will eventually replace VOSA’s Facility in Exeter. This was fully operational by July 2013 and now Stuart’s Truck and Bus services cover the entire South West peninsula, spanning Bridgwater, Bridport and through to Land’s End.

Stuarts acquire Dusty Bin, County skips and a couple of small, local Skip companies. This further increased the coverage of the skip company with transfer stations in Exeter, Torbay and Plymouth. EMS now operates 40 lorries employs over 120 staff and processes over 150,000T of the South West’s waste.

January 2022-EMS purchases Masters skips in St Austell. This expands our coverage into Cornwall further increasing our trading area.

January 2023 EMS invest in a new bespoke Kiverco picking system at their main Hill Barton transfer station which over doubles the throughput and improves the quality of the product picked.

In November 2023 we added the assets of ABC Siddall’s skip hire the lorries and drivers join the EMS teams at EMS Exeter and Bay Skips. This will further increase our Skip Hire coverage and continue to provide the same, excellent service.

In April 2025 EMS acquired YPH based in Yeovil, Somerset

Jack and Troy Stuart