Taking a broad look at the industry

This edition includes one of Waste Today’s more popular features: the Largest Haulers List. This year’s list is 50 companies strong and features businesses that haul municipal solid waste. This year, unlike in past years, we have excluded special, hazardous and medical waste haulers from the list. By doing so, we hope to provide our readers with information about companies that have risen to the top of their specialty area.

As has been the case for other lists we’ve published recently, this list also undoubtedly will reflect some changes in company ownership through mergers and acquisitions, which seem to be as certain in the waste hauling industry as death and taxes.

Over the past several decades, I would wager that few of the companies on this list would have risen to the top without the help of M&A activity or investment from venture capitalists or private equity firms. The latter happens to be among the topics of our cover story, “Money and mechanization,” which is the second in our series on the history of the waste industry. The “mechanization” part of the title focuses primarily on the various changes that have come to waste collection trucks, from automatic side loading to cab redesigns. These innovations have helped to accommodate women and others who may struggle with the grueling nature of waste collection, allowing them to operate a waste truck because manually throwing heavy cans of garbage into trucks isn’t always part of the process.

It’s been interesting to learn about the history and context of some of the changes I’ve seen as a customer over the past several years. For smaller companies looking to expand, I hope the information on how private equity firms operate and what types of businesses those firms seek as partners help provide a way forward if all other options seem to be exhausted.

For an even more in-depth look at how money functions within the waste industry, it might be a good idea to attend this year’s Corporate Growth Conference, which Waste Today will host Nov. 2 and 3 at Swissotel in Chicago. Launched in 2018 as the Capital Markets Conference, the Corporate Growth Conference features a day-long program of speakers and opportunities to meet the movers and shakers within the industry. It presents a great way for business owners to make important connections in the financial services sector as well as with one another. With more than 90 percent of attendees coming from c-suite and senior management positions, the event offers an opportunity to connect with decision-makers and financial leaders and learn from a slate of speakers at the head of the field.

For more information on the Corporate Growth Conference, visit www.WasteTodayEvents.com. For those already familiar with the event who want to register, go directly to http://bit.ly/register-cgc.