Republic Services Inc Profile
Republic Services, Inc. and its consolidated subsidiaries (Republic) provide environmental services in the United States.
The company operates across the United States and Canada through 364 collection operations, 246 transfer stations, 74 recycling centers, 207 active landfills, 3 treatment, recovery and disposal facilities, 22 treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDF), 6 salt water disposal wells, 12 deep injection wells, and 1 polymer center. The company is engaged in 76 landfill gas-to-energy and other renewable energy projects and had post-closure responsibility for 126 closed landfills.
Within the company’s recycling and waste business, the company prioritizes investments in market verticals with above average growth rates and higher return profiles. Environmental solutions remains fragmented which provides consolidation opportunities to drive scale.
The company operates throughout North America, but the physical collection and recycling or disposal of material is very much a local business and the dynamics and opportunities differ in each of the markets the company serves.
Foundational Elements
The company’s strategy is designed to generate profitable growth by sustainably managing the company’s customers’ needs, and it is underpinned by various foundational elements – the company’s market position and the company’s operating model.
Market Position
The company has a robust market planning process to identify opportunities to grow internally through capital investments and infrastructure development and externally through acquisitions and public-private partnerships. Additionally, the company’s market planning process allows the company to analyze market conditions and proactively adjust to trends as they emerge, including the effects of legislation, demographic shifts and changes in the market and the competitive landscape.
Operating Model
The company’s operating model allows the company to deliver a consistent, high-quality service to all its customers through the Republic Way: One Way. Everywhere. Every Day. This approach of developing standardized processes with rigorous controls and tracking allows the company to leverage its scale and deliver durable operational excellence. The Republic Way is the key to harnessing the best of what the company does as operators and translating that across all facets of the company’s business. Key elements of the company’s operating model are the company’s organizational structure, safety, fleet automation, compressed natural gas vehicles, fleet electrification and standardized maintenance.
Fleet Automation: Approximately 77% of the company’s residential routes have been converted to automated single-driver trucks.
Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Vehicles; Approximately 20% of the company’s recycling and waste collection fleet operates on CNG and approximately 13% of the company’s replacement recycling and waste vehicle purchases during 2023 were CNG vehicles. As of December 31, 2023, the company operated 45 CNG fueling stations.
Fleet Electrification: The company is taking a leadership position in electric technology innovation for the company’s recycling and waste collection fleet. This is a critical step toward reducing the company’s environmental impact through lower fleet emissions. The company is partnering with multiple manufacturers to pilot electric-powered recycling and waste trucks.
Standardized Maintenance: The company operates the fifth largest vocational fleet in the United States.
Comprehensive Environmental Services
The company serves customers with a strong, vertically-integrated operating platform and offer a complete set of products and services, including the collection and processing of recyclable, solid waste and industrial waste materials; transportation and disposal of non-hazardous and hazardous waste streams; and other environmental solutions. The company offers a wide array of products and services with a proven track record in safety, compliance and environmental stewardship.
Recycling & Waste Services
The company has a strong, national, vertically-integrated operating platform that allows the company to compete more effectively and efficiently in the local markets in which the company operates. During the year ended December 31, 2023, approximately 68% of the total solid waste volume the company collected was disposed at landfills the company owns or operates (internalization). Through acquisitions, landfill operating agreements and other market development activities, the company creates market-specific, vertically-integrated operations typically consisting of one or more collection operations, transfer stations and landfills. The company also operates recycling centers in markets where diversion of waste is a priority, customers are willing to pay for the service and the company can earn an appropriate return on the company’s investment.
Collection Services
The company provides residential, small-container and large-container collection services through 364 collection operations. In 2023, approximately 69% of the company’s total revenue was derived from its collection business, of which approximately 19% of the company’s total revenue related to residential services, approximately 30% related to small-container services and approximately 20% related to large-container services.
The company’s residential collection business involves the curbside collection of material for transport to transfer stations, or directly to landfills, recycling centers, or organics processing facilities. The company typically performs residential collection services under contracts with municipalities, which the company generally secures through competitive bids, which give the company exclusive rights to service all or a portion of the homes in the municipalities. These contracts usually range in duration from one to five years, although some of the company’s exclusive franchises are for significantly longer periods. The company also performs residential services on a subscription basis, in which individual households contract directly with the company.
In the company’s small-container business, the company supplies its customers with recycling and waste containers of varying sizes. The company typically performs small-container collection services under one- to three-year service agreements, and fees are determined based on a number of factors, including the market, collection frequency, type of equipment furnished, type and volume or weight of the material collected, transportation costs and the cost of processing or disposal. The company’s small-container services are typically offered to small business complexes, multi-family housing and strip malls and include industries, such as restaurants, retail, real-estate and professional and other services.
The company’s large-container collection business includes both recurring and temporary customer relationships. For the recurring portion, the company supplies its customers with recycling and waste containers of varying sizes and rent compactors to large generators of material. The company typically performs the collection services under one- to three-year service agreements, and fees are determined based on a number of factors including the market, collection frequency, type of equipment furnished, type and volume or weight of the material collected, transportation costs and the cost of disposal. The company’s recurring large-container services are typically offered to larger facilities, hotels and office buildings and include industries such as manufacturing, retail, hospitality, professional and other services.
For the temporary portion of the company’s large-container collection business, the majority of the material relates to construction and demolition activities and is typically event-driven. The company provides temporary collection services on a contractual basis with terms ranging from a single pickup to one-year or longer.
Transfer Services
The company owns or operates 246 transfer stations. Revenue at the company’s transfer stations is primarily generated by charging tipping or disposal fees, which accounted for approximately 5% of the company’s revenue during 2023. The company’s collection operations deposit material at these transfer stations, as do other private and municipal haulers, for compaction and transfer to disposal sites or recycling centers. Transfer stations provide collection operations with a cost-effective means to consolidate material and reduce transportation costs while providing the company’s landfills with an additional mechanism to extend their geographic reach.
Recycling Processing Services
The company owns or operates 74 recycling centers. These centers generate revenue through the processing and sale of old corrugated containers (OCC), old newsprint (ONP), aluminum, glass and other materials, which accounted for approximately 2% of the company’s total revenue during 2023. Approximately 82% of the company’s total recycling center volume is fiber based and includes OCC, ONP and other mixed paper. During 2023, the company processed and sold 2.0 million tons, excluding glass and organics, from the company’s recycling centers. An additional 2.0 million tons were collected by the company and delivered to third parties. The company is investing in innovative recycling technology and have expanded the company’s organics operations to help customers meet their diversion goals. The company processed 1.1 million and sold 0.2 million tons of organic materials, respectively, from the company’s recycling centers in 2023.
Landfill Services
The company owns or operates 207 active landfills. The company’s landfill tipping fees charged to third parties accounted for approximately 11% of the company’s revenue during 2023. As of December 31, 2023, the company had estimated permitted acres of 40,659 and estimated total available disposal capacity of 5.1 billion in-place cubic yards. The in-place capacity of the company’s landfills is subject to change based on engineering factors, requirements of regulatory authorities, the company’s ability to continue to operate the company’s landfills in compliance with applicable regulations and the company’s ability to successfully renew operating permits and obtain expansion permits at the company’s sites. Some of the company’s landfills accept non-hazardous special waste, including utility ash, asbestos and contaminated soils.
Most of the company’s active landfill sites have the potential for expanded disposal capacity beyond the permitted acreage. The company monitors the availability of permitted disposal capacity at each of the company’s landfills and evaluate whether to pursue an expansion at a given landfill based on estimated future waste volumes and prices, market needs, remaining capacity and the likelihood of obtaining an expansion. To satisfy future disposal demand, the company is seeking to expand permitted capacity at certain landfills; however, all proposed or future expansions may not be permitted.
The company also has responsibility for 126 closed landfills, for which the company has associated closure and post-closure obligations.
Environmental Solutions
The company has the capabilities to address the complex environmental and sustainability needs of its customers. The company’s environmental solutions offerings include collection, treatment, consolidation, disposal and recycling of hazardous and non-hazardous waste; field and industrial services; equipment rental; emergency response and standby services; and in-plant services. Environmental solutions volume is generated by the daily operations of industrial, petrochemical and refining facilities and oil and natural gas exploration and production sites, including maintenance, plant turnarounds and capital projects. Volume also is generated by private and government funded projects, including site remediation, redevelopment or emergency spill response. In 2023, approximately 11% of the company’s revenue was derived from environmental solutions.
Waste Treatment & Disposal
The company owns or operates 6 active hazardous waste landfills, 9 active energy waste landfills, 3 treatment, recovery and disposal facilities, 22 treatment, storage and disposal facilities, 6 salt water disposal wells and 12 deep injection wells. The company recycles, treats and disposes of hazardous and non-hazardous industrial wastes. The waste handled include substances, which are classified as ‘hazardous’ because of their corrosive, ignitable, reactive or toxic properties and other wastes subject to federal, state and provincial environmental regulation. The waste the company handles comes in solid, liquid and sludge form and can be received in a variety of containerized and bulk forms and transported to the company’s facilities by truck and rail.
The company also operates thermal desorption units that recover oil and metal bearing catalyst from refinery and other organic and oil-based waste. The recycled oil and recycled catalyst are sold to third parties.
Field Services
The company’s field services include a wide range of specialty and total waste management services provided to refineries, chemical plants, manufacturing plants and other government, commercial and industrial facilities either on-site or at the company’s network of facilities. These services include industrial cleaning and maintenance, retail services, lab pack, site remediation, equipment cleaning and maintenance services, specialty equipment rental, transportation and emergency response.
As an integral part of the company’s services, the company employs highly trained staff and operate a network of service centers that characterize, package and collect hazardous and non-hazardous wastes from customers and transport such wastes to and between the company’s facilities for treatment or bulking for shipment to final disposal locations.
Other Services
Other revenue primarily consists of National Accounts revenue generated from nationwide or regional contracts in markets outside the company’s operating areas where the associated material handling services are subcontracted to local operators.
Seasonality
The company’s operating revenues tend to be somewhat higher in the summer months, primarily due to higher volumes of construction and demolition waste. The volumes of large-container and residential recycling and waste in certain regions of the country also tend to increase during the summer months. The company’s second and third quarter (year ended December 2023) revenues and results of operations typically reflect this seasonality.
Regulation
The following summarizes the primary federal, environmental and occupational health and safety-related statutes that affect the company’s facilities and operations: the Solid Waste Disposal Act, including the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA); the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA); the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (the Clean Water Act); the Clean Air Act; and the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA).
Certain of the company’s facilities are subject to the Quebec Environment Quality Act, the Ontario Environmental Protection Act or the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act and their respective regulations.
The company’s Group 3 operations own and use 37 vessels registered under the United States flag. Accordingly, the company is subject to various United States federal, state and local statutes and regulations governing the ownership, operation and maintenance of the company’s vessels. The company’s United States-flag vessels are subject to the direct jurisdiction of the United States Coast Guard, the United States Customs and Border Protection and the United States Maritime Administration, as well as other federal and state agencies. The company is also subject to international laws and conventions and the local laws of foreign jurisdictions where the company operates.
A portion of the operations of the company’s standby services business within Group 3 is conducted in the United States coastwise trade. This is a protected market that is subject to United States cabotage laws that impose certain restrictions on the ownership and operation of vessels in the United States coastwise trade. These laws are principally contained in 46 U.S.C. Chapters 121, 505 and 551 and the related regulations, which are commonly referred to collectively as the ‘Jones Act.’ The company have compliance mechanisms in place designed to assist with monitoring and maintaining compliance with the ownership requirements of the Jones Act.
The company is also subject to a number of safety, security and environmental laws and regulations, including the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPFS Code), an amendment to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) as implemented in the Maritime Transportation and Security Act of 2002 to align United States regulations with those of SOLAS and the ISPS Code.
Some of the company’s facilities and operations are subject to the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 (TSCA) and the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, as amended (AEA). The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) has adopted regulations for licensing commercial low-level radioactive waste regulated under the AEA for disposal and has delegated regulatory authority to certain states, including states where one or more of the company’s facilities are located.
With regard to the company’s solid waste transportation operations, the company is subject to the jurisdiction of the Surface Transportation Board and are regulated by the Federal Highway Administration, Office of Motor Carriers and by regulatory agencies in states that regulate such matters.
The company is engaged in 76 landfill gas-to-energy and other renewable energy projects. The production of renewable fuel through certain of these projects is incentivized by the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program, which was authorized under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and expanded through the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
History
Republic Services, Inc. was incorporated as a Delaware corporation in 1996.
