Dive Brief:
- The U.S. waste and recycling industry, including the medical and hazardous waste markets, reached an estimated $104.63 billion in revenue in 2024, according to the Waste Business Journal. It's the first time the industry, including publicly traded companies, private companies and municipal entities, has surpassed $100 billion.
- Collection revenues were responsible for two-thirds of that revenue overall, $69.46 billion, with public company collection revenue alone totaling $45.25 billion for the year. Disposal was responsible for 27% of revenues, and transfer and processing was responsible for 7%.
- The industry has grown considerably since 1992, when Jim Thompson, president of WBJ, began pulling together facility-level data. That year, revenues totaled $29 billion.
Dive Insight:
The annual data compiled by WBJ has charted the industry's shift toward privatization. Since 1992, the municipal sector's share of revenue has fallen from 38% to 16.9%, per WBJ. Private companies control a 18.3% share of the market, totaling just over $20 billion in revenue.
Public companies included in the data include WM, Republic Services, Waste Connections, GFL Environmental, Clean Harbors and Stericycle, which merged with WM late last year. Private companies include Rumpke, Recology, Waste Pro, Win Waste Innovations, LRS, and Heritage-Crystal Clean.
Public companies also continue to dominate the disposal space. They generated $19.11 billion in revenue in 2024 through such activities, or almost 68% of the market. Landfill operations generated $18.14 billion for public companies and incineration or waste to energy generated $960 million.
On the processing side, public companies generated $1.79 billion through MRF and recycling operations, compared to $480 million for private companies and $120 million for municipalities.
While public companies still generate the most revenue from residential collections, private companies hold a relatively large share of that pie. Public companies generated $14.49 billion in 2024, compared to $11 billion for private companies and $7.96 billion for municipalities. Public companies were responsible for roughly 85% of the revenue generated by commercial and industrial collection, though, with the rest split roughly evenly among private companies and municipalities.
Regional waste trends continue to hold, with the Northeast U.S. remaining the only region that is a net exporter of its waste. Thompson noted that Pennsylvania is included in that region in WBJ's calculations. Without it, the region would be an even larger net exporter, he said.
