Stericycle Is Now Part of WM

Together, we’re creating communities that are safe, healthy, and thriving.

In November 2024, WM, North America's leading provider of comprehensive environmental solutions, completed its acquisition of Stericycle, a leader in compliance- based solutions that protect people and brands, promote health and well-being, and safeguard the environment. As part of WM, Stericycle will benefit from a range of synergies, including leveraging WM’s expertise in logistics, technology-enabled cost optimization, and its leading waste disposal network, among others.

WM Healthcare Solutions

Our WM Healthcare Solutions segment, through our subsidiary Stericycle, is primarily a business-to-business company providing Regulated Waste and Compliance Services (RWCS) and Secure Information Destruction (SID) services. WM Healthcare Solutions serves customers in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe with solutions to safely manage materials that could otherwise spread disease, contaminate the environment, or compromise one’s identity.

Regulated Waste and Compliance Services

WM Healthcare Solutions includes compliance programs and collection, processing, and disposal of regulated and specialized waste, including medical, pharmaceutical and hazardous waste. RWCS are provided to customers in the U.S., Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom (“U.K.”). Regulated waste can be defined as any material subject to government-imposed guidelines for handling the material for transportation or disposal. Examples include medical waste, pathological waste, sharps and pharmaceutical waste.

The collection process for regulated waste streams begins at the customer location with waste segregation. To assure regulatory compliance, we educate our customers and will not accept material from customers unless it complies with our waste acceptance protocols and is properly stored or packaged in containers that we have either supplied or approved and is appropriately labeled. Our team members then collect containers at the customer location via our fleet of vehicles. The majority of collected waste is then transported directly to one of our processing facilities or to one of our WM Healthcare Solutions transfer stations where waste is aggregated until it is transported to a processing facility.

Upon arrival at a processing facility, containers or boxes of regulated waste undergo a quality control process to verify that they do not contain any unacceptable substances. Any container or box that is discovered to contain unacceptable waste goes through a corrective action process which could include redirecting the waste, returning the waste to the customer and/or notifying the appropriate regulatory authorities. From there, regulated waste is processed using one of several treatments or processing technologies, predominantly at one of our facilities:

• Autoclaving — Autoclaving is the primary method of regulated waste treatment. This process relies on steam at high temperature and pressure to kill pathogens and render materials non-infectious.
• Alternative Technologies — We use several different non-incineration alternatives to autoclaves, predominantly outside of the U.S. The processes used by these technologies are similar to autoclaving, as the regulated waste is heated to a specified temperature for a required time to kill the pathogens and render materials non-infectious. Depending on local requirements, the waste may be shredded before or after treatment to render it unrecognizable.
• Incineration — While we strive to use alternative, non-incineration methods for treating medical waste, incineration remains a regulatory requirement and/or a best practice in certain geographies or for certain types of medical waste that need to be chemically destroyed. Incineration burns regulated waste at elevated temperatures and reduces it to ash. Incineration reduces the volume of waste, and it is the recommended treatment and disposal option for some types of regulated waste such as anatomical waste, residues from chemotherapy procedures and non-hazardous pharmaceutical waste. Air emissions from incinerators can contain certain byproducts that are subject to federal, state and in some cases, local regulation. In some circumstances, the ash byproduct of incineration may be regulated.

Upon completion of the treatment process, the resulting waste or incinerator ash is transported for disposal in a landfill owned by unaffiliated third parties or by the Company. In several of our incineration facilities, primarily in the U.K., we use different types of waste-to-energy (WTE) efforts as part of our operations. The WTE process captures the heat generated by combustion that can heat water, generate steam, or make electricity via a steam-powered turbine. In the U.K., several of our incinerators are co-located with hospitals and provide steam to be used for water heating, steam sterilization, and laundry services.