A winning mindset

By building onto the existing assets and knowledge acquired by the companies that led to its creation, the Portsmouth, New Hampshire-based waste management firm has established a valuable synergy among the businesses acquired.

“When thinking about strategic growth, each of the legacy companies had a unique value that they brought to the table. By tapping into the assets, infrastructure and relationships they have in their markets, along with our aligned vision and values to prioritize our team members and our customers, we can harness these synergies to create a unique offering that differentiates us from other waste management providers,” says Bob Boucher, CEO and president of WIN Waste Innovations.

With operations and facilities primarily located in the Northeast—an area of the country that’s known to lack disposal capacity—identifying transfer and waste reduction solutions is key to the company’s success.

“We have a little bit of a unique market in that there’s a lot more waste generation in this market than there is disposal capacity to manage that waste, which creates a lot of instability,” says Allia Saydjari, senior director of sustainability for WIN Waste. “By leveraging the unique portfolio of disposal assets that we can offer our customers, we can bring stability from those sustainable waste disposal options and also help them optimize their waste streams.”

From the curb to the grid

A major component of this stability can be credited to the company’s rail operations. Operating seven rail-served transfer stations with more than 1,800 rail cars—including intermodal containers, motor carriers and gondola rail cars—WIN Waste transfers 4 million tons of waste annually.

Given that rail can serve as a cost-effective, sustainable method of transportation that reduces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, Saydjari says it presents a low-carbon option to manage out-of-state disposal.

In addition to the company’s waste-by-rail infrastructure, WIN Waste operates two material recovery facilities (MRFs), 15 nonrail-served transfer stations, 14 waste-to-energy (WTE) facilities and seven landfills/monofils.

Through these assets, the company has created what it describes as an “integrated curb-to-grid” service that focuses on the sustainable and efficient collection of waste for use in WTE.

To offer customers a more sustainable approach to waste management, WIN Waste Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Eric Speiser says the company employs route optimization techniques to minimize the number of collection trucks needed on the road. On these optimized routes, drivers collect waste and recyclables, with the recyclables heading to the company’s network of MRFs.

Any additional material that can be processed for use in renewable energy will be transported to a WTE facility, and the electricity produced will be returned to the grid.

“That trash is brought to one of our renewable facilities where it’s turned into renewable energy and ultimately comes back to the grid to power the communities that we were originally servicing in the first place,” he says. “If you think about the circular economy, this is an incredible example of just that.”

WIN Waste converts approximately 6.7 million tons of waste into renewable energy annually, powering more than 340,000 homes.

In following the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Waste Management Hierarchy, Saydjari says WIN Waste prioritizes reduction, recovery and recycling of materials in its operations.

“Once all of the renewable attributes of the waste have been recovered and pulled out, what’s left over does need to be disposed of responsibly,” she continues. “We play a really critical role up and down that whole hierarchy to be able to prioritize the preferred methods of disposal to maximize resource recovery and manage the waste in the best way over the entire life cycle.”

The bigger picture

The pursuit of sustainability hasn’t been without its challenges, though.

As WIN Waste continues to navigate the best approaches to reaching its sustainability goals, a lack of infrastructure and economic viability can make things difficult.

“Some of the barriers we see are pretty ambitious goals without any infrastructure or economic sustainability to kind of bridge us to those goals,” Saydjari says. “That’s the challenge that we see a lot of our communities, a lot of our customers [and] a lot of our partners facing—finding a way that we can get to some of those waste reductions and a zero-waste worlds in a way that is not only environmentally sustainable but also economically sustainable.

“I think while we all have very good intentions … sometimes there are barriers or challenges in ensuring we are taking a holistic approach to our end goal of preserving natural resources and sustainably managing all of the waste channels,” she adds.

To support the broader sustainability initiatives in the communities it serves, the company says it has partnered with organizations to promote not only WIN Waste’s services but also the greater story it hopes to tell.

“We just partnered with the New England Patriots, the New England Revolution and Gillette Stadium back in August of 2022 to become the official waste [and] recycling provider for that stadium and those teams,” Speiser says. “The reason why we were able to partner with them is because of the story that we were able to tell.

“By partnering with sports organizations like the Revolution, the Patriots and then, just as of September of 2022, the Boston Bruins and TD Garden in downtown Boston, those have all really helped [raise] more awareness throughout New England, specifically as it relates to who WIN Waste Innovations is and what we stand for as a company.”

Beyond its own internal operations, WIN Waste also has partnered with the Baltimore nonprofit 4MyCiTy and DoorDash to launch a residential composting initiative called “Compost on the Go!” in the city of Baltimore.

Together, the three organizations have arranged for residential food waste to be collected by DoorDash drivers and delivered to 4MyCiTy’s local composting facility. Using 4MyCiTy’s composting technology, the collected food waste is turned into a usable soil amendment within a 24-hour cycle. 4MyCiTy’s soil amendment is then made available to the public for use in urban gardens.

Participants in the “Compost on the Go!” program place their food scraps into compostable/biodegradable bags that are produced through funding provided by WIN Waste.

“Supporting innovative community initiatives is what we get excited about, and the reason why is because we all can be in it together. There’s so much waste to manage; there’s so much to deal with, and we want to do it responsibly,” says Mary Urban, director of communications for WIN Waste. “Supporting 4MyCity, who gives our neighbors access to fresh foods that would have otherwise been landfilled, ... is a great example of [us] all working together to take on the large-scale issue of waste.”

“We play a really critical role up and down that whole hierarchy to be able to prioritize the preferred methods of disposal to maximize resource recovery and manage the waste the best way over the entire lifecycle.” – Allia Saydjari, senior director of sustainability, WIN Waste

Finding its niche

As WIN Waste continues to cement its role in the waste industry in the Northeast and beyond, the wants and needs of its customers will be critical to the company’s business model.

Saydjari, who’s spent most of her career in the waste industry, says she always saw a “sustainable revolution” coming but admits she was shocked at how quickly it gained traction.

“We’ve kind of evolved from being just an essential service provider to also a partner for our customers to help them meet their sustainability goals,” she says.

She adds that WIN Waste often sits down with customers, offering waste audits to some of them and analyzing their goals for recycling. The company also forms partnerships and provides reports for those partners and customers.

“[Sustainability is] quickly becoming ... important to our customers, and we’re seeing that demand skyrocket,” Saydjari says.

By leaning on the company’s comprehensive resources, Speiser says WIN Waste is able to better educate and advise its customers on how they can reach their waste-reduction goals, noting that it has helped “solidify WIN Waste Innovations as the best company in the industry as it relates to … helping businesses further their progress toward achieving their [environmental, social and governance] goals.”

The author is the associate editor of Waste Today and can be contacted via email at hrischar@gie.net.