Haulers report a strong Q4, overall year

Republic Services

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Republic reported $99 million in revenue from the recycling division, up 15.5% from $85.7 million during the fourth quarter of 2023. Overall, the company’s 2024 revenue increased by 6.7% to just over $16 billion. In 2022, revenue was $15 billion. 

The overall operating income was $3.2 billion in 2024, up from $2.8 billion in 2023. EBITDA for the recycling and waste division was $4.5 billion in 2024, up from $4.1 billion in 2023. 

Recycling processing and commodity sales were $409 million in 2024, up 30.9% from 2023’s sales of $312.3 million. The company pointed to an increase in overall commodity prices driving that increase.

The company also noted that in prior periods, it used tactics such as recycling commodity price agreements to manage exposure to changes in commodity prices, but it didn’t have any in place as of Dec. 31, 2024. 

In the fourth quarter of 2024, the company’s average recycled commodity price per ton was $153, an increase of $22 per ton over the prior year. Overall, the average recycled commodity price per ton in 2024 was $164, a year-over-year increase of $47 per ton. 

Recycling accounted for about 2% of the company’s total revenue in 2024, the same as in 2023, its SEC filing noted, and about 82% of total recycling center volume is fiber-based. In 2024, Republic processed and sold 2.1 million tons of material, excluding glass and organics. An additional 2.2 million tons were collected by the company and delivered to third parties. 

Republic expects to invest approximately $1 billion in acquisitions in 2025. In 2024, it started up its first Polymer Center in Las Vegas and completed construction of another Polymer Center in Indianapolis. In a Feb. 13 investors’ call, CEO Jon Vander Ark said that there’s been some “learning and startup costs in terms of uptime on equipment and getting that dialed in.” 

However, the company’s estimates on run rate in terms of price, cost, volume and customer willingness to pay are “really strong and really positive on those assumptions,” he said.

He’s “feeling good about the place that Las Vegas is right now,” he said, and “we’re taking all those learnings, obviously, and feeding those into Indianapolis.”

Vander Ark also commented on benefits the company has seen from rolling out new technology, including employing cameras on collection trucks. 

“We utilize cameras to identify overfilled containers and recycling contamination, which is enabled by our RISE digital platform,” he said. “This technology generated more than $60 million in incremental revenue in the first year of operation.”

Republic Services has 367 collection operations, 248 transfer stations and 75 recycling centers across the U.S. and Canada.

Waste Connections 

Waste Connections reported a record year of private company acquisitions, completing 24 acquisitions with a net fair value of $2.2 billion and about $750 million in annualized revenue.

In 2023, it completed 13 acquisitions with a net fair value of $752.8 million. 

In a Feb. 13 investor’s call, Ron Mittelstaedt, president and CEO, called 2024 “an extraordinary year at Waste Connections by any number of measures, including safety performance, employee engagement and retention, acquisition activity, financial results and ultimately value creation.”

As far as acquisitions go, he added that “we continue to have a robust pipeline” and the company already has over $75 million in annualized revenue either closed or signed and expected to close during Q2. That would bring the 2025 expected revenue contribution from acquisitions to over $300 million, Mittelstaedt said. 

According to its SEC filing, the company’s overall 2024 EBITDA increased 13.8% to $2.9 billion, up from $2.5 billion in 2023, and its 2023 operating income was $1.1 billion, a 8.3% decrease year over year due to landfill closure costs. 

Its recycling segment specifically netted about $242 million, up 64.6% from 2023’s $147 million. The company pointed to “higher average commodity pricing for old corrugated cardboard and other paper products as compared to the prior period.”

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Waste Connections’ overall revenue was about $2.3 billion, up 15% year over year from $2 billion, a press release noted. For the full year, revenue was $8.9 billion, up from $8 billion in 2023. 

Overall operating income in Q4 was a loss of $199.2 million, which included $601.6 million in reduced asset value because of the early closure of a landfill, the press release noted. In Q4 of 2023, Waste Connections reported $224.5 million in operating income. The company’s Q4 EBITDA was $732 million, up 11.6% year over year. 

In the recycling division, the fourth quarter of 2024 brought revenue of $60 million, up 46.3% from $41 million in 2023. 

In 2024, recycling revenue made up about 2.7% of Waste Connections’ revenue, a greater share than 2023’s 1.8%. 

GFL Environmental 

Toronto-headquartered GFL Environmental’s recycling business brought in 108 million Canadian dollars in the fourth quarter and 439.5 million Canadian dollars in 2024 (about $74.7 million and $303.9 million U.S., respectively. All following figures are in USD). 

According to its SEC filing, the company’s revenue, $1.4 billion in Q4 and $5.5 billion for the year, was about level year over year. The recycling segment was up 2.8% from 2023’s $237.5 million in revenue, and Q4 recycling revenue was up 26.8% from 2023’s $58.9 million. 

Overall, GFL Environmental reported a 2024 EBITDA of $1.6 billion, an increase of 6.7% year over year. 

Recycling generated 5.5% of GFL’s revenue in 2024, compared to 4.3% in 2023.

In addition, GFL officially closed the sale of its Environmental Services business on March 3. In January GFL announced it had entered into an agreement to sell its Environmental Services business for $8 billion, to Apollo and BC Partners, while retaining an equity stake.

Patrick Dovigi, founder and CEO of GFL, said in a press release that the “transaction will allow us to materially de-lever our balance sheet and accelerate our path to an investment grade credit rating.” 

In a Feb. 25 investors’ call, Dovigi added that “I don’t think our setup has ever been better.” 

“We have proven that we can execute on our strategic plan, and we believe that we have laid out the foundation for long-term growth and value creation for all shareholders,” he said. “Our go-forward strategy remains simple and clear. We’re going to continue to generate industry-leading organic growth.”

Casella Waste Systems

Casella Waste Systems also reported a strong year with multiple acquisitions that bolstered growth. In its SEC filing, it reported that collection pricing was up 6.5% year over year, with “sustained execution against our strategic pricing programs, which helped to offset cost inflation.” 

Casella’s Resource Solutions segment, which includes recycling, saw total revenues of $329.9 million, up 12.7% year over year. The company processed over 1.1 million tons of recyclable materials in 2024. 

The segment’s operating income also increased in fiscal year 2024, rising 73.2% to $28.4 million year over year. 

In the fourth quarter of 2024, Resource Solutions saw revenue of $85.1 million, up 9.7% from $77.6 million in 2023, a press release stated. 

In 2024, the Resource Solutions segment made up 21.2% of the company’s overall revenue, down slightly from last year. 

In a Feb. 13 investor’s call, John Casella, chairman and CEO, said Resource Solutions had one of its best years in history. 

“We invested in and upgraded our Boston recycling facility in ’23. The operation performed very, very well in 2024, in fact better than expected, and was a contributor to our success in the year,” he said. “In early 2025, we wrapped up a similar upgrade in Willimantic, Connecticut. The operation was offline for part of 2024, but is now up and running. As planned, it will take a few weeks to calibrate the new system, but we’re excited to have that project complete.”

Overall, the company’s revenue was $1.6 billion in 2024, up 23.1% year over year. Its total operating income was $72.8 million, down 9.5% from $80.4 million in 2023. 

Casella attributed that decline to about $8.4 million in expenses to close a landfill in Southbridge, Massachusetts and high expenses from acquisition activities. 

Its full-year EBITDA was $360.6 million, up $66.0 million year over year, or 22.4%, “driven by acquisition contribution and organic growth.”

In the fourth quarter, Casella’s overall revenues were $427.5 million, up $67.9 million – about 18.9% – year over year. 

That revenue growth was mainly driven by some of the newly closed acquisitions and rollover impact from acquisitions closed in prior periods, the press release noted, along with collection and disposal price growth and higher recycling commodity volumes and prices.

Its fourth quarter operating income was $18.5 million, up 38.7% year over year, and its EBITDA was $95.0 million, up 15.6% year over year. 

Casella acquired eight businesses in 2024, including Whitetail Disposal and LMR Disposal in eastern Pennsylvania and western New Jersey, Royal Carting and Welsh Sanitation in New York and Connecticut, and two additional operations in its Eastern region. All told, it spent $467.9 million on those acquisitions, significantly less than the $846.6 million it spent in 2023. 

Those eight businesses bring over $200 million of annualized revenues, a press release noted, and Casella has acquired three businesses in fiscal year 2025 year-to-date with approximately $40 million of annualized revenues.

CEO Casella added in the press release that the acquisitions are “further strengthening our operating capabilities in our Mid-Atlantic markets and entering a strategically attractive adjacency in the Hudson Valley region of New York.” 

The three businesses the company has acquired so far in 2025 are “filling in our service territory in Maryland and Pennsylvania and adding synergistic overlap in Eastern Massachusetts,” Casella added. 

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