EI Digest Research Update

June 2006

Commercial Hazardous Waste Landfills

Accepted 4 Million Tons of Waste In 2004

Environmental Information Limited has released an updated analysis on the commercial hazardous waste land disposal sector in North America. The commercial hazardous waste management sector is comprised of twenty-two landfills that under Canadian and United States solid waste laws and regulations are permitted to accept hazardous waste. The leading publicly traded companies operating commercial hazardous waste landfills are Waste Management Inc. (WMI), Clean Harbors (CLHB), and America Ecology (ECOL).

Demand for commercial hazardous waste land disposal services held steady in 2004 with approximately 4 millions tons of industrial solid waste and remediation cleanup waste being accepted. Approximately 2/3 of the accepted waste was hazardous, as defined by federal regulations. Some of the “nonhazardous waste” accepted was defined as “state” hazardous wastes, meaning that it was defined as hazardous in the state of origin, but was not a federally defined hazardous waste.

Reporting from a number of the commercial landfills indicated that despite the flat overall demand, the sector has experienced increased demand from the manufacturing sector for the disposal of manufacturing process wastes. Correspondingly, the landfills reported less remediation wastes in 2004 than 2003. Historically, volumes of remediation wastes have varied from year to year as contaminated sites eventually reach the point where the decision is made to excavate contaminate soil and debris for ultimate disposal.

“These research findings are consistent with our general expectation that the commercial land disposal sector will see increasing demand from the manufacturing sector with improvement in North America economy, and that there will be year to year fluctuation in demand as individual remediation projects reach the excavation and removal stage,” stated senior analyst Mr. Cary Perket.

This report is part of a series of annual reports produced by Environmental Information Limited (“EI”) as part of its EI Digest research services on the commercial hazardous waste management sector. Annual reports are issued on commercial boilers & industrial furnaces, fuel blending, incineration, landfills, solvent recovery and other sectors. The EI Digest reports have been issued annually since 1989. For further information on the EI Digest, please call 952-831-2473.