Waste

Sector Insight: Waste

The Waste sector reported 97.1M metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions across 1,433 facilities operated by 582 distinct companies in the most recent EPA Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) reporting year. On a per-facility basis, this averages approximately 68K metric tons of CO2e per year, a measure of emissions intensity that reflects the typical scale of operations required to cross the 25,000 MT CO2e annual reporting threshold that triggers mandatory GHGRP disclosure under 40 CFR Part 98.

Sector totals are driven by a handful of top emitters. Across the 582 reporting companies in this industry, the largest players can account for the majority of sector emissions, a pattern that becomes visible in the ranked company table above. That concentration matters for policy and investment analysis: identifying the top few corporate actors typically yields more leverage for decarbonization than attempting broad sector-wide interventions. The company rankings shown are sorted by total reported CO2e and reflect the latest available EPA data after facility-level rollups.

Comparing Waste against other EPA-classified sectors requires care. Industry classifications in GHGRP aggregate facilities by primary activity, so a vertically integrated company may have facilities reported in several sectors. The figures shown here represent only Scope 1 direct emissions, combustion, process, and fugitive sources at reporting facilities. Scope 2 electricity purchases and Scope 3 value-chain emissions are excluded. For investors tracking SB 253 and SEC climate disclosure compliance, this GHGRP-derived sector view remains the most consistent longitudinal benchmark for U.S. industrial carbon performance.