Description
Waste Management (WM) is a waste management, comprehensive waste, and environmental services company operating in North America. Founded in 1968, the company is headquartered in the Bank of America Tower in Houston, Texas.
The company's network includes 346 transfer stations, 293 active landfill disposal sites, 146 recycling plants, 111 beneficial-use landfill gas projects and six independent power production plants. Waste Management offers environmental services to nearly 21 million residential, industrial, municipal and commercial customers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. With 26,000 collection and transfer vehicles, the company has the largest trucking fleet in the waste industry. Together with its competitor Republic Services, Inc, the two handle more than half of all garbage collection in the United States.
History
In 1893, Harm Huizenga, a Dutch immigrant, began hauling garbage at $1.25/wagon in Chicago.[6] In 1968, Wayne Huizenga, Dean Buntrock, and Larry Beck founded Waste Management, Inc. and began aggressively purchasing many of the smaller garbage collection services across the country, as the descendant firm of Harm Huizenga. In 1971, Waste Management went public, and by 1972, the company had made 133 acquisitions with $82 million in revenue. It had 60,000 commercial and industrial accounts and 600,000 residential customers in 19 states and the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. In the 1980s, Waste Management acquired Service Corporation of America (SCA) to become the largest waste hauler in the country.
Between the years of 1976 and 1997, the executive officers of Waste Management, Inc. began "cooking" the accounting books by refusing to record expenses necessary to write off the costs of unsuccessful and abandoned landfill development projects; establishing inflated environmental reserves (liabilities) in connection with acquisitions so that the excess reserves could be used to avoid recording unrelated operating expenses, improperly capitalizing a variety of expenses; failing to establish sufficient reserves (liabilities) to pay for income taxes and other expenses; avoiding depreciation expenses on their garbage trucks by both assigning unsupported and inflating salvage values and extending their useful lives; assigned arbitrary salvage values to other assets that previously had no salvage value; failed to record expenses for decreases in the value of landfills as they were filled with waste, used netting to eliminate approximately $490 million in current period operating expenses and accumulated prior period accounting misstatements by offsetting them against unrelated one-time gains on the sale or exchange of assets; and used geography entries to move tens of millions of dollars between various line items on the company's income statement. Officers were accused of making "the financials look the way we want to show them." The top officers settled with the federal government for $30.8 million in 2005, without admitting guilt.
In 1993, Waste Management, Inc. changes to WMX Technologies, Inc. As a universal symbol of the other services they provided other than solid waste removal, recycling, and disposal.
When a new CEO took charge of the company in 1997, he ordered a review of the company's accounting practices in 1997. In 1998 Waste Management restated its 1992-1997 earnings by $1.7 billion, making it the largest restatement in history.
In 1998, in a pivotal development point, Waste Management merged with USA Waste Services, Inc. USA Waste Services CEO John E, Drury retained the chairman, and CEO position of the combined company. Waste Management then relocated its headquarters from Chicago to Houston. The merged company retained the Waste Management brand. In late 1999, John Drury stepped down as chairman due to brain surgery. Rodney R. Proto then took the position of chairman and CEO. Unfortunately, that year also brought trouble for the newly expanded company in the form of an accounting scandal.
In November 1999, turn-around CE was brought in to help Waste Management recover. The company has since implemented new technologies, safety standards, and operational practices and is on a steady upward climb.
On July 14, 2008, Waste Management offered a $34 per share all-cash bid to acquire arch-competitor Republic Services, Inc. On August 11, 2008, the bid was raised to $37 per share. On August 15, 2008, Republic Services, Inc. denied Waste Management's bid for a second time. On October 13, 2008, Waste Management withdrew its bid for Republic Services, citing financial market turmoil.
In January 2009, a global economic crisis forced Waste Management to aggressively reduce and restructure its corporate workforce.
On February 7, 2010, CBS debuted a new TV series called Undercover Boss after the Super Bowl. Waste Management COO Lawrence O'Donnell III participated in this first episode and got a chance to see up close the inner workings of the company he helped run. O'Donnell left Waste Management on July 1, 2010.
In 2015, Winters Brothers assumed all of WM's operations in Connecticut and New York (excluding New York City, and continues to service these regions under contract with WM.
Waste Management also sponsored the #14 car of Sterling Marlin in 2006 until 2007 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.
USA Waste Services Inc
In 1987, USA Waste was founded in Oklahoma by Don Moorehead and moved the headquarters to Dallas, Texas, after buying out local haulers. After John Drury, CEO of BFI, got in a dispute with William Ruckelshaus, Drury left. He later became a part of USA Waste Services. He acquired Mid-American Waste Systems with co-founder George Moorehead; that boosted USA Waste.[citation needed] In 1994, USA Waste acquired TransAmerican Waste Industries from Tom J. Fatjo, former CEO and founder of BFI. In 1995 USA Waste acquired Sanifill, and Rodney Proto then become COO of USA Waste Services. USA Waste Services, Inc., moved into Sanifill's headquarters in Houston, Texas. Later in 1995, USA Waste acquired the assets of Allied Waste Industries, Inc. in Canada, after the Laidlaw acquisition. In 1996 USA Waste Services acquired Kosti Shirvanian hauler Western Waste Industries, which put USA Waste right behind number 1 hauler WMX Technologies, Inc., and number 2 Browning-Ferris Industries, Inc.[citation needed] Kosti now served on USA Waste's board of directors. Early in 1997, USA Waste acquired both BFI's and WMX's Canadian assets. In mid-1997, USA Waste acquired Bradley S. Jacobs's hauler United Waste Systems. Jacobs sold to USA Waste and did not become a part of USA Waste. In 1998, USA Waste acquired City Management Corp. in MI. Later in 1998, John Drury and USA Waste Services, Inc., and hauler WMX Technologies, Inc. merged. John Drury took the CEO position. John Drury retired the name USA Waste and kept the name Waste Management, Inc., after the merger. Drury then retired the WMX ''Buntrock Burgundy'' to USA Waste's gold and green. The logo is also a mirror image of USA Waste's ''U'' logo. In April 2000, Drury died. Rodney Proto then took over CEO of the new Waste Management. He was then fired by the executives. Then Larry O'Donnell, a former USA Waste executive, took over as chief operating officer.
Rebranding to WM
In February 2022, Waste Management announced the company would be rebranding to be referred to simply as WM. This comes with an increased emphasis of WM's strategy to focus on sustainability and environmental services and not just waste collection and disposal.
