- Business
- Waste Management, Inc. Waste Management, Inc. (UWS.DE) is a leading provider of comprehensive waste management and environmental services in North America; its core offerings include collection and transfer services for residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers; recycling processing of paper, cardboard, plastics, metals, and glass; landfill disposal operations across 254 active sites; resource recovery through 135 beneficial-use landfill gas projects and waste-to-energy facilities; and specialized medical waste management via WM Healthcare Solutions, encompassing hazardous waste, sharps disposal, and secure information destruction using autoclave treatment and advanced technologies. The company, founded in 1968 and headquartered in Houston, Texas, operates 337 transfer stations, 97 recycling plants, six independent power production plants, and the industry's largest fleet of 26,000 collection vehicles, serving nearly 21 million customers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. In late 2024, Waste Management, Inc. completed its $7.2 billion acquisition of Stericycle, forming the WM Healthcare Solutions division to expand into regulated medical waste and healthcare environmental services while pursuing synergies projected at $250 million annually by 2027; the company subsequently divested non-core international operations in Spain and Portugal to Urbaser for $86.4 million in January 2025 and continues tuck-in acquisitions to enhance network internalization, pricing strategies, and technology-driven efficiencies like automated recycling facilities.