Top 10: Waste Management Solutions
Waste impacts both bottom lines and the environment.
Waste policy is tightening across markets, like California’s SB 1383 and the EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.
Sustainability strategies that centre waste can keep both negative business and environmental impacts to a minimum.
Sustainability Magazine has ranked 10 of the top waste management strategies and companies leading them.
10. Lower-emission waste collection
Leading company: Biffa
Head of Sustainability: Fiona Campbell
Headquarters: High Wycombe, UK
Employees: 11,000
Biffa operates more than 150 alternatively fuelled vehicles including HVO and electric.
Instead of buying new, the company is working to upcycle refuse trucks to save carbon while converting to electric. It has also converted 25 transfer station plant vehicles to run on HVO.
At Biffa’s Midlands and North West transfer stations, the use of HVO vehicles translates to a saving of more than 280 tonnes of carbon in just six months.
9. Battery recycling
Leading company: Umicore
Executive Vice President People & Organisation: Ana Fonseca Nordang
Headquarters: Brussels, Belgium
Employees: 11,000
Umicore uses a proprietary in-house process to recycle batteries, combining both pyro and hydro metallurgy. The company safely dismantles large industrial batteries, including those from electric vehicles, without crushing or shredding.
The company says that its latest technology demonstrates recovery yields of more than 95% for cobalt, copper and nickel and more than 90% for lithium for a wide variety of battery chemistries.
Umicore says that it has the capacity to recycle 7,000 tonnes of batteries each year, or 20,000 electric car batteries.
8. Metals recycling
Leading company: REMONDIS
Head of Communication & Sustainability: Kristoffer Nordenstaaf
Headquarters: Lünen, Germany
Employees: 38,000
REMONDIS Group collects, processes and trades ferrous and non-ferrous scrap to supply steelworks and smelters with high-quality recycled raw materials.
The company has developed proprietary recycled raw-material grades such as TSR40 to support low-carbon steelmaking.
Substituting prime ore with high-quality scrap can reduce energy use and embedded carbon in metals.
REMONDIS’ technologies can also lift recovery of metals from incinerator bottom ash to feed back to markets.
7. Solvent recovery
Leading company: Clean Harbors
EVP & President, Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions: Brian P. Weber
Headquarters: Massachusetts, US
Employees: 25,200
Clean Harbors offers solvent recovery through its Safety-Kleen service. The company cleans up used solvents and returns them to the market.
Solvents are distilled to remove contaminants, producing product-grade solvent again. Recycling these solvents can reduce hazardous waste along with the associated transport and paperwork.
This could include chemicals like acetone, alcohols, ketones and aromatics and helps manufacturers to lower virgin use.
6. E-waste recycling
Leading company: SUEZ
EVP Communications, Public Affairs, CSR: Stéphanie Cau
Headquarters: Paris, France
Employees: 40,000
SUEZ provides end-to-end waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) services for businesses.
This includes compliant collection, treatment and high-rate material recovery of computers, screens, small appliances and refrigeration equipment.
In France, SUEZ runs a dedicated WEEE plant at Feyzin with a capacity of around 25,000 tonnes per year supported by 20 consolidation centres. The site reports more than 90% material recovery.
5. Advanced material recovery facilities
Leading company: GFL Environmental
VP, Environmental Responsibility & Sustainability: Jennifer Ahluwalia
Headquarters: Ontario, Canada
Employees: 20,000
GFL runs highly automated plants that combine optical sorters, AI vision and robotics to boost purity and recovery while cutting manual picks.
In Winnipeg, it has an 80,000 square foot facility that is around 90% automated and reports around 90% recovery.
The facility uses a Machinex SamurAI robot that uses AI to improve sorting. Integrating AI monitoring can provide real-time insights on what is in waste streams.
4. Anaerobic digestion
Leading company: Veolia
VP, Sustainable Development Director: Pierre-Yves Pouliquen
Headquarters: Paris, France
Employees: 215,000
Veolia uses anaerobic digestion to turn food scraps, sewage sludge and some industrial effluents into biogas and digestate.
Biogas is a renewable fuel that can displace fossil gas and capturing it can avoid uncontrolled release of methane. Digestate can act as a nutrient-rich fertiliser substitute.
Veolia designs, builds and runs anaerobic digestion plants at food waste hubs, industrial sites and even wastewater facilities, making valuable products from waste.
3. Construction and demolition recycling
Leading company: Waste Connections
Vice President, Engineering and Sustainability: Kurt R. Shaner
Headquarters: Texas, US
Employees: 20,000
Construction and demolition (C&D) is the source of a third of the world’s waste according to the European Commission.
Waste Connections collects source-separated C&D streams like concrete, wood, metals and roofing and mixed streams where separation on site isn’t feasible.
The company’s Plainfield material recovery facility makes use of advanced technologies to vertically integrate and de-risk its collection operations with nearly a dozen optical sorters, robotics and a dual baler system.
2. Composting organics
Leading company: Republic Services
VP, Recycling and Sustainability: Pete Keller
Headquarters: Arizona, US
Employees: 42,000
Organic waste makes up around 30% of waste sent to landfills in the US according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Republic Services both collects and composts organic waste, in many cases using aerated static pile composting. This is a method where air is blown through covered piles to speed up composting, control odours and reduce emissions.
In San Diego County, Republic has opened California’s first fully solar powered compost facility. This renewable energy runs the entire facility from sensors to fans.
"Republic Services has made a long-term commitment to increase the recycling and circularity of key materials like organics from the waste stream," says Pete Keller, Vice President of Recycling and Sustainability at Republic. "Recycling organic waste into compost is one of the many ways we're providing sustainable solutions to our customers in the San Diego region, and we continue to invest in organics infrastructure across California."
1. Landfill gas capture
Leading company: WM
SVP and Chief Sustainability Officer: Tara Hemmer
Headquarters: Texas, US
Employees: 48,000
Methane gas is produced when waste decomposes in landfills which can have a bigger warming impact on the planet than carbon dioxide.
When captured, this gas can either be used to generate electricity or as renewable natural gas (RNG). WM uses RNG to fuel its compressed natural gas trucks that pick up waste and recycling.
WM says it converted 58.1 million MMBtu of landfill gas to energy in 2024, equivalent to powering more than 300,000 homes a year, and brought five new RNG facilities online.
“As North America’s leading provider of environmental solutions, WM plays a crucial role in helping to create a more sustainable future,” say CEO Jim Fish and Chief Sustainability Officer Tara Hemmer in the company’s 2024 sustainability report. “Today, we continue to invest in WM’s infrastructure and offerings to help solve some of our customers’ toughest problems. Our work is guided by WM’s sustainability ambitions — material is repurposed, energy is renewable and communities are thriving.”
