Industry News

Mergers & Acquisitions

Casella acquires Boston-based recycling and waste services provider

Rutland, Vermont-based Casella Waste Systems Inc. has acquired Charlestown, Massachusetts-based recycling and waste services provider Save That Stuff. The transaction was completed Feb. 3.

“Save That Stuff is an outstanding company, and we’re pleased to have Erik Levy and his staff joining the Casella team,” says Jeff Weld, vice president of communications at Casella. “The organization aligns well with our core competencies, and more importantly the culture Erik has built over the past 35 years aligns with our core values.”

Established in 1990 by President Erik Levy, Save That Stuff provides a range of recyclable materials collection and processing services and works with more than 3,000 New England businesses and institutions to safely dispose of nonrecoverable materials.

Its 100,000-square-foot processing facility, located in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood, is approximately 2 miles from Casella’s Charlestown material recovery facility.

“This acquisition will help provide more efficient service to existing hauling customers for both organizations while also helping to drive additional circularity for our customers and complementing our recycling and materials management efforts throughout the greater Boston market,” Weld says. “We look forward to onboarding the team and bringing additional services and support to our newly acquired customers.”

Weld says Casella Waste Systems plans to rebrand Save That Stuff’s assets.

Casella acquired a handful of companies in the second half of 2024, including New Jersey-based LMR Disposal LLC, Pennsylvania-based Whitetail Disposal and New York-based sister companies Royal Carting Service Co. and Welsh Sanitation Service.

Grants

$9.8M in waste and recycling grants awarded in Nebraska

The Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy (NDEE) has announced the award of $9.8 million in grants to support 136 projects across the state. These grants will help fund waste and litter reduction projects, recycling programs, scrap tire cleanups and collection programs for household hazardous waste, electronics and pharmaceuticals.

“NDEE is grateful to assist local efforts that promote waste and litter reduction,” says Interim Department Director Kara Valentine. “The grants help out with the costs of proper disposal of many household materials and make a difference to our communities.” 

Waste Reduction and Recycling Incentive funds are generated by a fee on solid waste disposed of in landfills, an annual retail business sales fee and a fee assessed on the sale of new tires. Grants are provided to local integrated waste management projects and can include recycling systems, household hazardous waste collections and composting. For 2025, 24 projects totaling $3 million were funded under the Business Fee and Disposal Fee categories. 

Also included in the Waste Reduction and Recycling Incentive program are Scrap Tire funds, which are generated from a $1 fee on new tires purchased in Nebraska. In 2025, 58 grants totaling $2.5 million were awarded. These grants will fund 22 scrap tire cleanup events across Nebraska. Enough funding was awarded to clean up 6,035 tons of scrap tires, the NDEE says.

Funds also will be used to partially reimburse the cost of many products made from recycled scrap tires, such as artificial turf football, soccer, baseball and softball fields; athletic running tracks; and playground surfacing. 

Litter Reduction and Recycling funds are generated from a fee charged to certain manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers of products that commonly contribute to litter. The program has provided grants annually since 1979.

In 2025, 54 litter grants totaling $4.3 million have been awarded in the public education, cleanup and recycling categories. Public education programs educate citizens on litter reduction and recycling efforts through a variety of school and community activities.

Cleanup grants provide funding for Nebraska residents of all ages who pick up litter and debris along the state’s highways, waterways, recreation lands, urban areas and other public-use areas. Not only are the public areas improved through the removal of litter, but also much of the material collected is recycled, according to the NDEE.

Grant applications for 2026 will be accepted starting in June 2025.

Facilities

Spokane, Washington, explores carbon capture technology at WTE facility

The city of Spokane, Washington, is considering a $650,000 study by carbon capture company CarbonQuest to test its technology for use at the city’s waste-to-energy facility. 

The facility—the only one of its kind in the state—has been scrutinized by the local community and state leaders, largely because of its emissions, The Columbian reports.

A carbon cap-and-trade program under Washington’s Climate Commitment Act, which survived a citizen initiative in November 2024, could require Spokane to pay $2.5 million to $8 million annually beginning in 2027 to account for the facility’s emissions. 

The city lobbied the state legislature in 2023 to fund an emissions life cycle analysis, which found that incineration releases more carbon dioxide than landfilling but not when factoring in electricity generated, recyclable metals recovered and other factors. 

As reported by The Columbian, the legislature hasn’t agreed to an exemption for the waste-to-energy facility, leaving the city with dwindling time to avoid potentially devastating costs.

To prepare for the situation, the city is using funds generated from the carbon credit market to study whether carbon capture technology would be feasible at the waste-to-energy facility. 

According to Spokane’s 2019 greenhouse gas inventory report, solid waste activities produced 111,560 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) equivalent in 2019, with waste-to-energy operations accounting for 89 percent of that number, while landfilling only accounted for 7 percent. 

Anna Pavlova, senior vice president for strategy, market development and sustainability at CarbonQuest, tells The Columbian the city hopes the carbon capture project could serve as a case study for waste-to-energy facilities across the county and potentially abroad. 

“The waste-to-energy industry in general hasn’t seen much carbon capture, even though that’s seen as the one solution to their carbon emissions,” Pavlova says. “Our hope is we can demonstrate it’s feasible, we can capture emissions, we can continue the plant running— because otherwise that garbage will go into a landfill—and we want to use that as a case study for other companies.”

If approved by city council, the study would determine the viability of carbon capture at the waste-to-energy facility, draft designs and explore the best ways to dispose of concentrated CO2 once it’s been removed.

Pavlova says eastern Washington is particurly well-suited for the disposal of CO2, which typically is stored in deep basalt wells or magnesium formations created from using natural gas. That natural gas can turn carbon into solid minerals such as magnesite. 

CarbonQuest’s projects in New York have been able to use captured CO2 in concrete, where it can be stored permanently or put to commercial use. Washington, however, currently lacks the carrots and sticks that make that market viable, Pavlova says.

Officials are optimistic about the potential to sell CO2 for use in concrete, fertilizer or sustainable aviation fuel, which is a potential use being explored by local startup Twelve. 

Medical Waste

Veolia, MassBio partner with GreenLabs Recycling for medical waste plastics recycling

Last year, Veolia and MassBio completed an agreement with GreenLabs Recycling to support innovative, regionally focused solutions for recycling container lab plastics used in facilities that manage medical waste in Boston. 

According to the companies, the partnership provides a solution for these end-of-life plastics, creating a hyperlocal recycling and manufacturing ecosystem for lab plastic consumables.

For example, the companies recycle pipette tip boxes into a lab product they manufacture outside Boston called a tips transfer bin, a benchtop receptacle made from 100 percent-recycled plastic.

The lab plastics designated for GreenLabs recycling from Veolia customers are shipped from the waste generator to Veolia’s Middleton, Massachusetts, facility, where the plastics are consolidated to ship to GreenLabs’ Concord, Massachusetts, facility. The plastics are separated, granulated and prepared for the molding process.

The granulated plastic material is transformed into the transfer bins using molds at a nearby plastic molding facility, keeping the circular economy solution local and within a 50-mile radius of one of the largest life science hubs in the world. 

GreenLabs founder Sam White developed the idea, which led him to connect with MassBio and Veolia. Under the agreement with Veolia, the recycling solution for lab plastics was implemented using a medical waste processing center that Veolia operates in Middleton to aggregate the plastic for GreenLabs. 

After a year-long pilot initiation, the partnership has evolved to the point that GreenLabs has diverted more than 200,000 pounds of plastic that otherwise would have gone to a landfill, with some large biotech firms already taking part by contributing containers that can be recycled.