WM displays optimism at Investor Day event

The leadoff presentation at the 2025 Investor Day event held by Houston-based WM on June 24 carries the optimistic title “Fueling a Long-Term, Profitable Engine for Growth.”

In a 115-slide presentation, WM portrays its current operations and its self-described track record of meeting previously announced goals.

The firm also points to its recent recycling- and landfill gas-centric activities as a way to bring in up to $800 million in additional earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by the end of 2027, compared with a 2022 baseline.

The leadoff presentation by CEO Jim Fish described WM as a company that currently brings in 89 percent of its revenue from collection and disposal activities. The rest of the firm’s revenue comes from recycling (7 percent), specialty healthcare sector services (2 percent) and landfill gas-to-renewable natural gas (RNG) conversion activities (2 percent).

WM currently manages more than 500 transfer stations (some of which specialize in medical waste), more than 260 landfills, 105 material recovery facilities (MRFs) or other recycling plants, more than 85 autoclaves or medical waste incinerators, and a combined fleet of nearly 500 regional hauling operations.

Between 2015 and May 2025, WM delivered a 476 percent return to shareholders. The firm says that outpaces both the Dow-Jones Industrial Average (137 percent) and the Industrial Select Sector Standard & Poor’s Depositary Receipt (SPDR) Fund (205 percent) in that same time frame.

In a slide titled “Maximizing Growth Opportunities from Sustainability Investments,” WM outlines the recycling and RNG activities this decade that it sees as potentially resulting in $800 million annual growth in EBITDA.

On the recycling side, WM's planned $1.4 billion in MRF investments already has seen the completion of 29 new or retrofitted recycling plants, with another 10 underway or planned.

On the RNG side, WM has completed eight of 20 landfill gas-to-RNG installations.

By the end of 2027, WM says it will have 2.8 million tons of MRF or other recycling plant annual capacity in place and will be able to generate up to 25 metric million British thermal units (MMBtu) of RNG annually.

The company portrayed challenges facing the solid waste sector and some of the opportunities tied to those challenges.

In its presentation, WM described a landscape in which some 400 landfills with a combined 150 million tons of annual disposal capacity could be going offline in the next 15 years.

Opportunities tied to that challenge, according to WM, include: securing landfill expansions in appropriate markets; investing in recycling infrastructure to increase landfill diversion; and “pricing disposal appropriately to reflect scarcity value and transportation costs.”

A presentation by Tara Hemmer, WM senior vice president and chief sustainability officer, listed construction and demolition (C&D) materials recycling, textile recycling and food scraps diversion as among the customer request-oriented tasks facing WM.

On the regulatory side, Hemmer pointed to extended producer responsibility (EPR) systems in place or scheduled in seven states in the United States and nine Canadian provinces or territories as influencing its operations.

She said WM is well-positioned to play a role in EPR systems, thanks in part to the company’s $1.4 billion set of investments in MRFs and recycling plants.

In a slide detailing those MRF investments, WM listed several cities in the U.S. and Canada that represented new markets for it on the recyclables processing side thanks to the program, including Detroit, Miami and Toronto, plus Brooklyn, New York; Dumfries, New Brunswick; Edmonton, Alberta; Fort Walton Beach, Florida; Fort Worth, Texas; Nappanee, Ontario; Nashville, Tennessee; Orlando, Florida; and Portland, Oregon.

Hemmer’s presentation said diverting food waste is a “new frontier” for WM. A slide focusing on the subsector showed a WM-operated anaerobic digestion (AD) plant in Quebec and a windrow composting facility in Pala, California.

The full 2025 WM Investor Day presentation, including sections focusing on hauling and disposal operations, medical waste and the firm’s finances, can be accessed on the WM investor relations website.