Waste Volume in Virginia Declines Again in 2009, Mirrors National Trend
The state of Virginia reports the overall volume of waste entering its landfills declined by 11% in 2009 from a year earlier. More significant was a 19% drop in wastes coming from other states, especially Maryland, its biggest customer, which sent 22% less waste last year. Among the different types of waste disposed, municipal solid waste (MSW), which comprises 68% of all waste disposed in the state, declined by 11% last year, followed by construction and demolition (C&D) wastes, that are 16.3% of the stream, which also declined by 11%. According to Waste Business Journal statistics, the trend nationwide is somewhat similar, except for C&D wastes which declined by nearly 20% across the US last year. Wastes from US businesses declined by 15% and nationwide residential waste declined a more modest 3% for a net decline of 7% in US landfilled waste in 2009...Read More »
Casella Sells Cape Cod, MA Operations for $7.8 Million
Casella Waste Systems said it sold three of its Cape Cod, Massachusetts operations for $7.8 million to United Waste Management, Inc. Proceeds of the sale which closed July 1, will help reduce corporate borrowings. The deal included Casella's Rochester construction and demolition debris transfer station, their East Sandwich transfer station and hauling assets and related equipment on the Cape. Those operations collectively generated revenues of $9 million in the in 12 months ended April 30, down slightly from a year ago. "Our goal is to divest $25 million of noncontributing, nonstrategic assets to help de-lever the balance sheet by the end of the calendar year," said company chairman and CEO John Casella. "With the sale of the Cape Cod assets, we have achieved approximately $11.1 million of total divestiture proceeds thus far — significant progress towards our objective." Casella said the Cape Cod assets were "low-margin businesses" with limited opportunity for growth...Read More »
San Diego, CA Considers Sale of Its Giant Landfill
San Diego, CA is considering the sale of its 3,400 ton-per-day Miramar Landfill, marking the city's complete exit from the landfill business. "By seeking proposals, we're simply doing what any smart government agency or private business would do: We're exploring our options," Mayor Jerry Sanders said in a statement. Faced with a budget deficit of $72 million, the city has had to consider many measures including tax increases, decreased retiree benefits, and selling its landfill that it has operated since 1959, in order to focus on core services such as police, firefighting, parks, libraries and street repairs. The latest proposal takes a page from San Diego County's sale of its financially troubled garbage system in 1997 to Allied Waste, which paid $180 million in what was hailed as one of the biggest privatizations in waste industry history. Many municipalities across the country have conceded that the private sector in general, has an advantage in operating landfills through their ability to better direct waste more efficiently via a network of owned collection and transfer operations that span entire regions rather than municipal boundaries...Read More »
EPA Re-evaluating Benefits of Coal Ash Reuse
EPA is re-evaluating its voluntary Coal Combustion Products Partnership (C2P2), which promotes industry partnerships to encourage recycling of coal waste, after environmentalists accused the program of overstating its greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits. Consequently, the agency posted a notice on the site's web pages saying the "pages have been removed while the program is being re-evaluated." In May, EPA suspended its partnership in the program amid concern that it would interfere with its proposal to issue first-time Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) rules to regulate coal waste.
An environmental group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) recently accused the agency of making "false claims" about GHG reductions in a July 1 petition that asks EPA to rescind and correct information about GHG emissions reductions from the beneficial reuse of coal ash, saying that the agency had failed to consider GHGs associated with mining and burning coal in the first place. In general, EPA and its administrator Lisa Jackson have favored an approach to regulating coal ash disposal that encourages continued beneficial reuse, but has recently expressed concerns about some uses of CCR in unencapsulated forms, such as the use of CCR in road embankments and agricultural applications...Read More »
IESI-BFC, Waste Services Complete Merger
IESI-BFC Ltd. and Waste Services, Inc. said they completed their merger and that the combined company, that will be headquartered in Toronto, would continue as IESI-BFC Ltd. and trade under the ticker symbol "BIN" on the New York and the Toronto Stock Exchanges. In order to satisfy regulators, however, Waste Services has to sell commercial waste collection assets in five Canadian municipalities including Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Ottawa and Simcoe County. The Board of Directors of the newly combined company will consist of eight members, including CEO Keith Carrigan, five directors from the IESI-BFC board of directors and two directors from WSI, which has nominated Michael DeGroote and David Sutherland-Yoest.
The two companies announced the $370 million merger back in November last year. The newly merged company is expected to be North America's third largest waste management company generating an estimated annual revenue of $1.5 billion with 6,000 employees serving commercial, industrial and residential customers in 11 US states, the District of Columbia, and in six Canadian provinces...Read More »
EPA Targets Industrial Landfills and Other Sources for GHG Reporting
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a final rule that adds four new sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to the list of those industrial sources that must report their emissions annually to the agency. Added to the list are underground coal mines, industrial wastewater treatment facilities, industrial waste landfills, and magnesium production facilities. Methane is the primary GHG emitted from the first three of these categories, while magnesium production plants primarily emit sulfur hexafluoride, a chemical that has greater global warming potential than methane. These sources must begin collecting their GHG emissions data on January 1, 2011, and file their first reports with EPA on March 31, 2012...Read More »
Casella Hires CFO from Waste Services
Casella Waste Systems has hired an executive from Waste Services Inc. as its new chief financial officer. Casella announced that Edwin D. Johnson joined the company this week replacing John Quinn, who resigned in September to move to LKQ Corp., a provider of alternative automotive replacement parts. In Johnson's three years at Waste Services, he served as both CFO and chief accounting officer, where he was involved in improving pricing, refinancing debt and selling and swapping assets. He also served as a CFO at another waste-management company, Attwoods PLC, and at a real-estate brokerage...Read More »
Republic Services Buys Las Vegas Recycling Company
Republic Services is acquiring Las Vegas-based Evergreen Recycling, owner of a 50,000 square foot facility in North Las Vegas. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Evergreen has been primarily focused on commercial recycling and dealing with construction and demolition debris recycling that has led to lucrative contracts, particularly with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) projects such as the new CityCenter. Republic was already expanding its own recycling programs, partly in response to Nevada state pressure that would like to improve upon its woefully low 2 percent recycling rate. Consequently, Republic was already planning to upgrade its North Las Vegas facilities. "Given current and future demand for enhanced recycling services, the merger between our two companies makes perfect sense," said Evergreen Recycling president Rob Dorinson. The management of Evergreen Recycling will stay on board as managers for the combined recycling operations...Read More »
Landfill Gas Firm Fortistar Closes $105 Million Financing for New Projects
Fortistar (White Plains, NY) said it closed on a $105 million senior debt facility that will help fund eighteen landfill gas to energy facilities, including ten new projects over the next 18 months. Union Bank, N.A. and Investec Bank PLC participated in the deal along with Caterpillar Financial Services Corp. Caterpillar manufactures landfill gas-to-energy equipment among many other things. The construction projects will increase Fortistar's landfill gas-to-energy portfolio by about 20% and collectively provide 435,000 MWh per year of renewable energy...Read More »
Stericycle Closes Multi-Service Deal with Large Healthcare Alliance
Stericycle Inc. announced a new contract with a division of Premier Inc., which manages volume purchase agreements for its 2,300 member hospitals and acute care facilities. Under what is being billed as a multi-service agreement, Stericyle is offering three services: Regulated Medical Waste and Pharmaceutical Waste Compliance services, and a new service - Stericycle's Integrated Waste Stream Solutions...Read More »
WCA Waste Increases Revolving Credit Facility
WCA Waste Corp. (Houston, TX) said it has amended a revolving credit facility to increase its limit to $200 million from $175 million. The company also extended the expiration date of the credit agreement to Jan. 31, 2014, from July 5, 2011. While the Amendment modified some of the pricing terms and conditions, it is not expected to increase borrowing costs...Read More »
Covanta to Report Second Quarter Results on July 22
Covanta Holding Corp. said it will announce second quarter financial results after the close of the market on Thursday, July 22 and will host a conference call at 8:30 a.m. the following day...Read More »
Waste Connections to Report Second Quarter Results on July 20
Waste Connections said it will announce second quarter financial results at the close of the market on Tuesday, July 20 and will host a conference call the following day at 8:30 a.m. (Eastern)...Read More »
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