Supply of Commercial Hazardous Waste Incineration Services Coming into Balance with Demand

Demand increases by 5% in 2000

Contacts: Stacey Dennehy
952/831-2473
Cary Perket
858/488-4760

August 23, 2001 — For Immediate Release

The EI Digest: Hazardous Waste Marketplace released select findings from its research of the commercial hazardous waste incineration market in Canada and the United States. In the year 2000, incineration demand increased to approximately 768 thousand tons, a five percent increase from 1999. Since 1997, the demand in the commercial hazardous waste incineration sector has a composite increase of slightly over 2 percent per year.

In 2000, the universe of major commercial hazardous waste incinerators, or those that can burn over at least 10,000 tons per year, was 15, with 3 operating in Canada and 12 operating in the U.S. Three additional minor commercial incinerators burning less than 10,000 tons per year operate in the U.S. Due to a variety of factors, the total practical capacity of commercial hazardous waste incinerators in 2000 was reduced to approximately 930 thousand tons per year, about 280 thousand tons per year lower than the total incineration practical capacity was in the mid 1990s.

"The demand and supply balance has come even more into balance in 2001 because of the closure of the Safety-Kleen incinerators at Bridgeport, New Jersey and Coffeyville, Kansas" states EI researcher Stacey Dennehy. "The market will enter 2002 with about 847 thousand tons per year of capacity." At a 2 percent annual growth average, it would still take a number of years for the demand and supply to come into balance. How soon a balance is reached will depend in part on how the demand serviced by the two closed Safety-Kleen incinerators will be redistributed in the incineration marketplace.

"We have reached a stage in the marketplace where many of the commercial incinerators are essentially operating at full capacity" stated EI Senior Analyst Cary Perket. "Much of the available remaining unused capacity is with commercial incinerators that have design limitations (e.g. liquid injection) and incinerators that are geographically remote from major markets."

Perket cautions that apparent improvement in the supply and demand balance is no reason for firms to consider entering the marketplace. "Current market pricing is heavily discounted from where it needs to be to support new incineration facilities.

There is a distinct difference between facilities operating at near practical capacity and facilities operating profitably.

Facilities are now turning their attention to optimizing the mixture of accepted waste to improve profitability," states Perket. He adds that "what is a profitable mix to an existing facility whose investment have been largely written off and what would be profitable to a new facility are very different."

This report appeared in the EI Digest: Hazardous Waste Marketplace, a business research report published 10 times per year that covers hazardous waste management issues. Further information of the EI Digest can be found on ENVIROBIZ.COM (www.envirobiz.com), one of the Internet’s leading sites for proprietary and public environmental business information. Based in Edina, Minnesota, Environmental Information, Ltd. (EI) specializes in information and research on the environmental services and technology marketplace. EI provides original subscription-based research services. Among the services is the comprehensive compilation of the largest directory and database of environmental service firms, landfills and treatment, storage and disposal (TSD) facilities in North America. For further information, contact customer service at 952/831-2473.