Full Description

Waste Management, Inc. (WMI), incorporated in 1987, is a provider of integrated waste services in North America. Through its subsidiaries the Company provides collection, transfer, recycling, disposal and waste-to-energy services. WMI’s customers include commercial, industrial, municipal and residential customers, other waste management companies, electric utilities and governmental entities. The Company operates in six operating groups, of which four are organized by geographic area and two are organized by function. The geographic groups include WMI’s Eastern, Midwest, Southern and Western Groups, and the two functional groups are its Wheelabrator Group and WM Recycle America (WMRA) Group. The Company also provides additional waste management services that are not managed through its six Groups. These services include in-plant services, methane gas recovery and third-party sub-contracted and administrative services.

Collection

Collection involves picking up and transporting waste from where it was generated to a transfer station or disposal site. For commercial and industrial collection services the Company has a three-year service agreement. The Company provides steel containers to customers to store their solid waste between pick-up dates. Containers vary in size and type according to the needs of its customers and the restrictions of their communities. They are designed to be lifted mechanically and either emptied into a truck’s compaction hopper or directly into a disposal site. For residential collection services, the Company has a contract with, or a franchise granted by, a municipality, homeowners association or some other regional authority that gives it the right to service all or a portion of the homes in an area. These contracts or franchises are for periods of one to five years. It also provides services under individual monthly subscriptions directly to households.

Landfills

As of December 31, 2008, the Company owned or operated 267 solid waste landfills. Solid waste landfills are built and operated on land with geological and hydrological properties. The operation and closure of a solid waste landfill includes excavation, construction of liners, continuous spreading and compacting of waste, covering of waste with earth or other inert material and constructing final capping of the landfill. The Company operates six hazardous waste landfills in the United States. It also operate a hazardous waste facility, at which it isolates treated hazardous waste in liquid form by injection into deep wells that have been drilled in rock formations far below the base of fresh water to a point that is separated by other substantial geological confining layers.

Transfer

As of December 31, 2008, WMI owned or operated 355 transfer stations in North America. The Company deposits waste at these stations. The solid waste is then consolidated and compacted to reduce the volume and increase the density of the waste and transported by transfer trucks or by rail to disposal sites.

Wheelabrator

As of December 31, 2008, WMI owned or operated 16 waste-to-energy facilities and five independent power production plants (IPPs) that are located in the northeast, and in Florida, California and Washington. At the Company’s waste-to-energy facilities, solid waste is burned at high temperatures in specially designed boilers to produce heat that is converted into high-pressure steam. During the year ended December 31, 2008, the Company’s waste-to-energy facilities received and processed 7 million tons of solid waste, or approximately 19,200 tons per day. The Company sells the steam produced at its waste-to-energy facilities and IPPs to industrial and commercial users. WMI’s IPPs convert various waste and conventional fuels into steam. Steam that is not sold is used to generate electricity for sale to electric utilities.

Recycling

The Company’s WMRA Group focuses on recycling programs within communities and industries. In addition to WMI’s WMRA Group, its four geographic operating groups provide certain recycling services that are embedded within the groups’ other operations. Recycling involves the separation of reusable materials from the waste stream for processing and resale or other disposition. The Company’s recycling operations include collection and materials processing; plastics and rubber materials recycling; electronics recycling services, and commodities recycling.

Through its collection operations, WMI collects recyclable materials from residential, commercial and industrial customers and direct these materials to one of its material recovery facilities (MRFs) for processing. The Company operates 89 MRFs where paper, glass, metals, plastics and compost are recovered for resale. It also operates six secondary processing facilities where materials received from MRFs can be further processed into raw products used in the manufacturing of consumer goods. Material processing services include data destruction, automated color sorting, and construction and demolition processing. Using sorting and processing technology, the Company processes stores and sells plastic and rubber commodities. It recycles discarded computers, communications equipment and other electronic equipment. Services include the collection, sorting and disassembling of electronics to reuse or recycle all collected materials. The Company markets and resells recyclable commodities to customers worldwide. WMI manages the marketing of recyclable commodities for its own facilities and for third parties by maintaining service centers.

Other

WMI’s waste management operations provides its customers with management of their waste, including identifying recycling opportunities, minimizing waste, determining the means available for waste collection and disposal. WMI develops, operates and promotes projects for the use of landfill gas through its waste management renewable energy program. As of December 31, 2008, the Company produced commercial quantities of methane gas at 111 of its solid waste landfills. At 80 of these landfills, the processed gas is delivered to electricity generators. The electricity is then sold to public utilities, municipal utilities or power cooperatives. At 23 landfills the gas is delivered by pipeline to industrial customers. At eight landfills, the landfill gas is processed to pipeline-quality natural gas and then sold to natural gas suppliers. In addition, the Company rents and services portable restroom facilities to municipalities and commercial customers under the name Port-O-Let, and provides street and parking lot sweeping services. The Company is also contracted to construct waste facilities on behalf of third parties.