WASTE MANAGEMENT INC (WM) Business

Item 1. Business.

General

Waste Management, Inc. is a holding company and all operations are conducted by its subsidiaries. When the terms “the Company,” “we,” “us” or “our” are used in this document, those terms refer to Waste Management, Inc., together with its consolidated subsidiaries and consolidated variable interest entities. When we use the term “WMI,” we are referring only to Waste Management, Inc., the parent holding company.

WMI was incorporated in Oklahoma in 1987 under the name “USA Waste Services, Inc.” and was reincorporated as a Delaware company in 1995. In a 1998 merger, the Illinois-based waste services company formerly known as Waste Management, Inc. became a wholly-owned subsidiary of WMI and changed its name to Waste Management Holdings, Inc. (“WM Holdings”). At the same time, our parent holding company changed its name from USA Waste Services to Waste Management, Inc. Like WMI, WM Holdings is a holding company and all operations are conducted by subsidiaries.

Our principal executive offices are located at 800 Capitol Street, Suite 3000, Houston, Texas 77002. Our telephone number is (713) 512-6200. Our website address is www.wm.com. Our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K are all available, free of charge, on our website as soon as practicable after we file the reports with the SEC. Our stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WM.”

We are North America’s leading provider of comprehensive environmental solutions, providing services throughout the United States (“U.S.”) and Canada. We partner with our customers and the communities we serve to manage and reduce waste at each stage from collection to disposal, while recovering valuable resources and creating clean, renewable energy. Our solid waste business is operated and managed locally by our subsidiaries that focus on distinct geographic areas and provide collection, transfer, disposal, recycling and resource recovery services. Through our Waste Management Renewable Energy (“Renewable Energy”) segment, we are also a leading developer, operator and owner of landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the U.S. and Canada that produce renewable electricity and renewable natural gas (“RNG”), which is a significant source of fuel that we allocate to our natural gas fleet. Following our 2024 acquisition of Stericycle, Inc. (“Stericycle”), our Healthcare Solutions segment provides regulated waste and compliance services (“RWCS”) and secure information destruction (“SID”) services in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe that protect people and brands, promote health and well-being and safeguard the environment. Additionally, through our Recycling Processing and Sales segment, we are a leading recycler in the U.S. and Canada, handling materials that include paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and metal. During 2025, our largest customer represented less than 5% of annual revenues.

We own or operate 257 landfill sites, which is the largest network of landfills throughout the U.S. and Canada. In order to make disposal more practical for larger urban markets, where the distance to landfills is typically farther, we manage 342 transfer stations, excluding those acquired from Stericycle, that consolidate, compact and transport waste efficiently and economically. We also use waste to create energy, recovering the gas produced naturally as waste decomposes in landfills and using the gas in generators to make electricity. We are a leading recycler in the U.S. and Canada, handling materials that include cardboard, paper, glass, plastic and metal. We provide cost-efficient, environmentally sound recycling programs for municipalities, businesses and households across the U.S. and Canada as well as other services that supplement our solid waste business.

Our fundamental strategy has not changed; we remain dedicated to providing long-term value to our stockholders by successfully executing our core strategy of focused differentiation and continuous improvement. We have enabled a people-first, technology-led focus to drive our mission to maximize resource value, while minimizing environmental impact, and sustainability and environmental stewardship is embedded in all that we do. Our strategy leverages and sustains the strongest asset network in the industry to drive best-in-class customer experience and growth. Our strategic planning processes appropriately consider that the future of our business and the industry can be influenced by changes in economic conditions, the competitive landscape, the regulatory environment, asset and resource availability and technology. We believe that focused differentiation, which is driven by capitalizing on our unique and extensive network of assets, will deliver profitable growth and position us to leverage competitive advantages. Simultaneously, we believe that investing in

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automation to improve processes and drive operational efficiency combined with a focus on the cost to serve our customers will yield an attractive profit margin and enhanced service quality. We are furthering our strategy of focused differentiation and continuous improvement beyond our traditional waste operations through our sustainability growth strategy that includes significant investments in our Renewable Energy and Recycling Processing and Sales segments, while increasing automation and reducing labor dependency. In addition, with our acquisition of Stericycle, we have advanced our growth strategy and built upon our sustainability initiatives. The acquisition provides a complementary business platform in medical waste, a sector with attractive near- and long-term growth dynamics, and in secure information destruction services to further our leading suite of comprehensive waste and environmental solutions. Furthermore, we continue to evaluate and plan to pursue emerging diversion technologies that may generate additional value.

Our Company’s goals are targeted at putting our people first, positioning them to serve and care for our customers, the environment, the communities in which we work and our stockholders. Our brand promise is ALWAYS WORKING FOR A SUSTAINABLE TOMORROW®. We live this promise through our service offerings and sustainable solutions, our investments in innovation, our people and our commitment to the future. Through our longtime focus on finding sustainable solutions, we continue to evolve beyond being a traditional environmental waste services company. Increasingly, our industry-leading focus on environmental sustainability aligns with demand from our customers who want more of their waste materials recovered. Waste streams are becoming more complex, and our aim is to address current needs, while anticipating the expanding and evolving needs of our customers. We believe we are uniquely equipped to meet the challenges of the changing waste industry and our customers’ waste management needs, both today and tomorrow as we work together to envision and create a more sustainable future.

We believe that execution of our strategy will deliver shareholder value and leadership in a dynamic industry and in any economic environment. In addition, we intend to continue to return value to our stockholders through dividend payments and share repurchases. In December 2025, we announced that our Board of Directors expects to increase the quarterly dividend from $0.825 to $0.945 per share for dividends declared in 2026, which is a 14.5% increase from the quarterly dividends we declared in 2025. This is an indication of our ability to generate strong and consistent cash flows and marks the 23rd consecutive year of dividend increases. All quarterly dividends will be declared at the discretion of our Board of Directors and depend on various factors, including our net earnings, financial condition, cash required for future business plans, growth and acquisitions and other factors the Board of Directors may deem relevant. Additionally, given the substantial progress already made on leverage reduction following the Stericycle acquisition, we resumed share repurchases in February 2026. Our Board of Directors approved up to $3.0 billion in future share repurchases, exclusive of fees, commissions and taxes. This new authorization supersedes and replaces the remaining authority under the prior Board of Directors’ authorization for share repurchases announced in December 2023. Under this new authorization, we currently expect to repurchase approximately $2.0 billion of shares during 2026, while continuing to prioritize a return to our targeted leverage level during the year. The amount of future share repurchases executed under our Board of Directors’ authorization is determined in management’s discretion, based on various factors, including our leverage level, net earnings, financial condition and cash required for future business plans, growth and acquisitions.

Operations

General

Our senior management evaluates, oversees and manages the financial performance of our business through five reportable segments, referred to as (i) Collection and Disposal - East Tier (“East Tier”); (ii) Collection and Disposal - West Tier (“West Tier”); (iii) Recycling Processing and Sales; (iv) Renewable Energy and (v) Healthcare Solutions. Our East and West Tiers, along with certain ancillary services (“Other Ancillary”) that are not managed through our Tier segments but that support our collection and disposal operations, form our “Collection and Disposal” businesses.

Our East Tier primarily consists of geographic areas located in the Eastern U.S., the Great Lakes region and substantially all of Canada. Our West Tier primarily includes geographic areas located in the Western, Southern and Central U.S., including the upper Midwest region, and British Columbia, Canada.

We also provide additional services not managed through our five reportable segments, which are presented as Corporate and Other. For further discussion refer to Note 19 of our Consolidated Financial Statements.

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Collection and Disposal

Services provided through our Collection and Disposal businesses are described below:

Collection. Our commitment to customers begins with a vast waste collection network. Collection involves picking up and transporting waste and recyclable, construction and demolition, and organic materials from where it was generated to a transfer station, recycling facility or disposal site. We generally provide collection services under one of two types of arrangements:

Landfill. Landfills are the main depositories for solid waste in North America. As of December 31, 2025, we owned or operated 253 solid waste landfills and four hazardous waste landfills, which represents the largest network of landfills throughout the U.S. and Canada. As of December 31, 2025, we owned or controlled the management of 244 sites with remedial activities that are in closure or have received a certification of closure from the applicable regulatory agency. Solid waste landfills are constructed and operated on land with engineering safeguards that limit the possibility of water and air pollution and are operated under procedures prescribed by regulation. A landfill must meet federal, state and/or provincial and local regulations during its design, construction, operation and closure. The operation and closure activities of a solid waste landfill include excavation, construction of liners, continuous spreading and compacting of waste, covering of waste with earth or other acceptable material and constructing final capping of the landfill. These operations are carefully planned to maintain environmentally safe conditions and to maximize the use of the airspace.

All solid waste management companies must have access to a disposal facility, such as a solid waste landfill. The significant capital requirements of developing and operating a landfill serve as a barrier to landfill ownership and, thus, third-party haulers often dispose of waste at our landfills. It is usually preferable for our collection operations to use disposal facilities that we own or operate, a practice we refer to as internalization, rather than using third-party disposal facilities. Internalization generally allows us to realize higher consolidated margins and stronger operating cash flows. The fees charged at disposal facilities, which are referred to as tipping fees, are based on several factors, including our cost to construct, maintain and close the landfill, the distance to an alternative disposal facility, the type and weight or volume of solid waste deposited and competition.

Under environmental laws, the federal government (or states with delegated authority) must issue permits for all hazardous waste landfills. All of our hazardous waste landfills have obtained the required permits, although some can accept only certain types of hazardous waste. These landfills must also comply with specialized operating standards. Only hazardous waste in a stable, solid form, which meets regulatory requirements, can be deposited in our secure disposal cells. In some cases, hazardous waste can be treated before disposal. Generally, these treatments involve the separation or

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removal of solid materials from liquids and chemical treatments that transform waste into inert materials that are no longer hazardous. Our hazardous waste landfills are sited, constructed and operated in a manner designed to provide long-term containment of waste. We also operate a hazardous waste facility at which we isolate treated hazardous waste in liquid form by injection into deep wells that have been drilled in certain acceptable geologic formations far below the base of fresh water to a point that is safely separated by other substantial geological confining layers.

Included within our Collection and Disposal businesses are landfills having (i) 19 third-party power generating facilities converting our landfill gas to fuel electricity generators; (ii) 17 third-party RNG facilities processing landfill gas to be sold to natural gas suppliers and (iii) nine third-party projects delivering our landfill gas by pipeline to industrial customers as a direct substitute for fossil fuels in industrial processes. In return for providing our landfill gas, we receive royalties from each facility, including the benefit of a 15% royalty from our Renewable Energy segment based on net operating revenue generated through the sale of RNG, renewable identification numbers (“RINs”), electricity and capacity, Renewable Energy Credits (“RECs”) and related environmental attributes from the 86 landfill beneficial use renewable energy projects owned by Renewable Energy on our active landfills, which is eliminated in consolidation.

Transfer. As of December 31, 2025, we owned or operated 342 transfer stations in the U.S. and Canada. We deposit waste at these stations, as do other waste haulers. The solid waste is then consolidated and compacted to reduce the volume and increase the density of the waste and transported by transfer trucks, rail or barge to disposal sites.

Access to transfer stations is critical to haulers who collect waste in areas not in close proximity to disposal facilities. Fees charged to third parties at transfer stations are usually based on the type and volume or weight of the waste deposited at the transfer station, the distance to the disposal site, market rates for disposal costs and other general market factors.

The utilization of our transfer stations by our own collection operations improves internalization by allowing us to retain fees that we would otherwise pay to third parties for the disposal of the waste we collect. It enables us to manage costs associated with waste disposal because (i) transfer trucks, railcars, rail containers or barge containers have larger capacities than collection trucks, allowing us to deliver more waste to the disposal facility in each trip; (ii) waste is accumulated and compacted at transfer stations that are strategically located to increase the efficiency of our network of operations and (iii) we can retain the volume by managing the transfer of the waste to one of our own disposal sites.

The transfer stations that we operate but do not own generally are operated through lease agreements under which we lease property from third parties. There are some instances where transfer stations are operated under contract, generally for municipalities. In most cases, we own the permits and will be responsible for any regulatory requirements relating to the operation and closure of the transfer station.

Other. Other businesses providing collection and disposal services include the following:

Strategic Business Solutions (“WMSBS”) — Although many waste management services such as collection and disposal are local services, our WMSBS business works with customers whose locations span the U.S. and Canada. Our strategic accounts program provides these customers with streamlined service, enhanced reporting, measurement tools aimed at meeting sustainability objectives and centralized billing and management of accounts.

Sustainability and Environmental Solutions (“SES”) — Our SES business collaborates with our geographic areas and national accounts sales team to offer our customers end-to-end solutions that help businesses achieve their sustainability, recycling and waste diversion goals while meeting industry-specific compliance requirements and rising environmental demands. These solutions include (i) Sustainability Services, where our employees provide full-service waste management solutions and advisory services, working full-time onsite at our customers’ facilities or through remote-managed programs (this service is managed through our SES business but reflected principally in our collection line of business); (ii) remediation and construction services; (iii) management and marketing of fly ash, which is residue generated from the combustion of coal to generate electricity and (iv) industrial waste services, which uses thermal and mechanical separation technologies to minimize waste volumes and recover commodities at the point of generation. The breadth of these service offerings, combined with our large and expanding network of technology-enabled infrastructure in recycling, organics and renewable energy give us the ability to help customers reduce the amount of waste they generate, identify recycling

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opportunities and determine efficient and environmentally friendly means for waste collection and disposal. Through these services, we aim to help customers increase circularity and accelerate their decarbonization goals.

Recycling Processing and Sales

Recycling involves the separation of reusable materials from the waste stream for processing and resale or other disposition. We are North America’s leading recycler of post-consumer materials. We not only collect materials from households and businesses across the U.S. and Canada, we also process and sell them to manufacturers to be recycled and sold generally within the North American market. Demand for recycled materials is generally growing. Several states have passed minimum-recycled-content mandates, and companies are responding to requirements for recycled content from their own customers and to meet sustainability targets. We are helping expand the availability of recycled materials by investing in infrastructure, increasing access to recycling services and educating customers through our Recycle Right® program.

Our recycling operations provide communities and businesses with an alternative to traditional landfill disposal and support our strategic goals to extract more value from the materials we manage. We were the first major solid waste company to focus on residential single-stream recycling, which allows customers to mix clean bottles, cans, paper, cups, tubs and cardboard in one bin. Residential single-stream programs have greatly increased recycling volumes. Single-stream recycling is possible through the use of various mechanized screens and optical sorting technologies. In addition to advancing our single stream recycling programs for commercial applications, we continue to invest in recycling technologies and businesses designed to offer services and solutions to support and grow our current operations. We are investing in enhanced recycling facility technology at new and existing facilities to benefit labor productivity, support increased recycling capacity and allow for dynamic adjustments to respond to evolving end-market demands. In 2025 and 2024, we opened eight and three new recycling facilities, respectively, within the U.S. and Canada equipped with advanced recycling technology. We continue to invest in recycling facility automation and new markets across the U.S. and Canada. Our Recycling Processing and Sales segment includes the following:

Materials processing — Through our collection operations and third-party customer base, we collect recyclable materials from residential, commercial and industrial customers and direct these materials to one of our recycling facilities for processing. As of December 31, 2025, we operated 113 recycling facilities, of which 51 are single stream, where cardboard, paper, glass, metals, plastics, construction and demolition materials and other recycling commodities are recovered for resale or redirected for other purposes.

Recycling commodities — We market and resell recycling commodities globally. We manage the marketing of recycling commodities that are processed in our facilities by continuously analyzing market prices, logistics, market demands and product quality through our dedicated recycling service centers and account managers.

Recycling brokerage services — We also provide recycling brokerage services, which involve managing the marketing of recyclable materials for third parties. Our experience in managing recycling commodities for our own operations gives us the expertise needed to effectively manage volumes for third parties. Utilizing the resources and capabilities of our recycling service centers and account managers, we can assist customers in marketing and selling their recycling commodities with minimal capital requirements.

Organics processing and sales — We collect recyclable food and yard waste from commercial, residential, and industrial customers, and process these materials through a network of mulching, composting, CORe®, and anaerobic digestion facilities. As of December 31, 2025, we operated 49 organics recycling facilities and also partner with third-party processors. Our network of facilities utilizes, markets and sells products including mulch, compost, soil amendments, and renewable energy.

The recyclable materials processed in our recycling facilities are received from various sources, including third parties and our own operations. In recent years, we have been focused on reducing dependency on market prices for recycled commodities by recovering our processing costs first. In our materials processing business, we have been transitioning our customer base over time from the traditional rebate model, where we paid suppliers for the inbound material, to a fee-for-service model that ensures the cost of processing the recyclable materials is covered along with an acceptable

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margin. With our current fee-for-service model, the pricing for these recyclable materials can either be a charge or “tip fee” when commodity pricing does not cover our cost to process the recyclable materials or a “rebate” when commodity pricing is higher than our processing costs and we are able to share this benefit with the customers generating recyclable materials. In some cases, our pricing is based on fixed contractual rates or on defined minimum per-ton rates. Generally, this pricing also considers the price we receive for sales of processed goods, market conditions and transportation costs. As a result, changes in commodity prices for recycled materials also significantly affect the pricing to our suppliers. Depending on the key terms of the arrangement, these “rebates” are recorded as either operating expenses or a reduction in operating revenues within our Consolidated Statements of Operations. If the key terms result in a charge to the customer, the associated “tip fees” would be recorded as operating revenues within our Consolidated Statements of Operations.

Renewable Energy

We develop, operate and promote projects for the beneficial use of landfill gas through our Renewable Energy segment. Landfill gas is produced naturally as waste decomposes in a landfill. The methane component of the landfill gas is a readily available renewable energy source that can be gathered and used beneficially as an alternative to fossil fuel. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) endorses landfill gas as a renewable energy resource, in the same category as wind, solar and geothermal resources. As of December 31, 2025, we had 103 landfill gas beneficial use projects producing commercial quantities of methane gas at owned or operated landfills. For 62 of these projects, the processed gas is used to fuel electricity generators. The electricity is then sold to public utilities, municipal utilities or power cooperatives. For 24 of these projects, the gas is used at the landfill or delivered by pipeline to industrial customers as a direct substitute for fossil fuels in industrial processes. For 17 of these projects, the landfill gas is processed to pipeline quality RNG and then sold to natural gas suppliers. Additionally, three of these projects are on third-party landfills. The revenues from both WM owned and third-party owned facilities are primarily generated through (i) the sale of captured and converted landfill methane gas; (ii) the sale of RINs under the Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS”) program implemented by the EPA; (iii) sale of Low Carbon Fuel credits designed to stimulate the use of low-carbon fuels and (iv) the sale of energy (electricity and capacity) and associated RECs. Renewable Energy is charged a 15% royalty on net operating revenue from these facilities residing on our active and closed landfills from our Collection and Disposal and Corporate and Other businesses, which is eliminated in consolidation. Additionally, Renewable Energy operates and maintains six third-party landfill beneficial gas use projects in return for service revenue. Our Collection and Disposal and Corporate and Other businesses benefit from these projects as well as 54 additional third-party landfill beneficial gas use projects in the form of royalties.

Renewable Energy converts landfill gas into several sources of renewable energy, which include RNG, electricity, heat and steam. Renewable Energy also generates RINs under the RFS program, other credits under a variety of state programs associated with the use of RNG in our compressed natural gas fleet and RECs associated with the production of electricity. Additionally, we generate and sell credits in Canadian and European markets through the Clean Fuels Regulations and the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification System, respectively. The RINs, RECs and other credits are sold to counterparties who are obligated under various regulatory programs and have a responsibility to procure RINs, RECs and other credits in order to offset their fossil fuel production and imports.

Healthcare Solutions

Our Healthcare Solutions segment, through our subsidiary Stericycle, is primarily a business-to-business company providing RWCS and SID services that protect people and brands, promote health and well-being and safeguard the environment. 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. Services provided through our Healthcare Solutions segment includes the following:

Regulated Waste and Compliance Services

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.”).

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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.

Collection and Transportation — 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 Healthcare Solutions transfer stations where waste is aggregated until it is transported to a processing facility.

Processing and Disposal of Regulated Waste — 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:

Upon completion of the treatment process, the resulting waste or incinerator ash is transported for disposal in a landfill owned by the Company or a third party. Additionally, in several of our incineration facilities, primarily in the U.K., we use different types of waste-to-energy solutions as part of our processes.

Secure Information Destruction

Healthcare Solutions also provides for the collection of personal and confidential information for secure destruction and recycling of sorted office paper. SID services are provided to customers in the U.S., Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the U.K.

We leverage a combination of off-site and on-site document destruction methods for one-time and recurring paper shredding. As of December 31, 2025, we operated 99 secure information destruction facilities in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe. Our service offerings leverage cross-cut shredding technology to enhance the security level of destruction and can provide secure chain-of-custody and proof of service. Shredded paper is then sold as sorted office paper.

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Corporate and Other

We also provide additional services that are not managed through our operating segments, which are presented in this report as Corporate and Other as they do not meet the criteria to be aggregated with other operating segments and do not meet the quantitative criteria to be separately reported. This includes the activities of our corporate office, including costs associated with our long-term incentive program, expanded service offerings and solutions (such as our investments in businesses and technologies that are designed to offer services and solutions ancillary or supplementary to our current operations) as well as our closed sites.

Included within our Corporate and Other businesses’ closed sites are (i) five third-party power generating facilities converting our landfill gas to fuel electricity generators; (ii) two third-party projects delivering our landfill gas by pipeline to industrial customers as a direct substitute for fossil fuels in industrial processes and (iii) two third-party RNG facilities processing landfill gas to be sold to natural gas suppliers in return for a royalty. Additionally, Corporate and Other benefits from a 15% royalty from our Renewable Energy segment based on net operating revenue generated through the sale of RNG, RINs, electricity and capacity, RECs and related environmental attributes from the 17 landfill beneficial use renewable energy projects owned by Renewable Energy on our closed sites, which is eliminated in consolidation.

We continue to invest in businesses and technologies that are designed to offer services and solutions ancillary or supplementary to our current operations. While most of these investments are in the form of minority equity stakes, they can also include joint ventures, joint development agreements or majority equity stakes. The solutions and services include (i) waste collection, processing and recycling; (ii) the development, operation and marketing of waste processing facilities and technologies; (iii) operation of RNG plants and (iv) the development and operation of organic recycling technologies. Furthermore, we continually scout, evaluate and run proof-of-concepts of innovative technologies within our core operations to improve safety, operational efficiencies and customer solutions.

Competition

We encounter intense competition from governmental, quasi-governmental and private sources in all aspects of our operations. We principally compete with large national waste management companies, counties and municipalities that maintain their own waste collection and disposal operations and regional and local companies of varying sizes and financial resources. The industry also includes companies that specialize in certain discrete areas of waste management, operators of alternative disposal facilities, companies that seek to use parts of the waste stream as feedstock for renewable energy and other by-products and waste brokers that rely upon haulers in local markets to address customer needs.

Operating costs, disposal costs and collection fees vary widely throughout the geographic areas in which we operate. The prices that we charge are determined locally, and typically vary by volume and weight, type of waste collected, treatment requirements, risk of handling or disposal, frequency of collections, distance to final disposal sites, the availability of airspace within the geographic region, labor costs and amount and type of equipment furnished to the customer. We face intense competition based on pricing and quality of service. We also compete for business based on breadth of service offerings. As companies, individuals and communities look for ways to be more sustainable, we are promoting our comprehensive services that go beyond our core business of collecting and disposing of waste in order to meet their needs.

Seasonal Trends

Our financial and operating results may fluctuate for many reasons, including period-to-period changes in the relative contribution of revenue by each line of business, changes in commodity prices and general economic conditions. Our operating revenues and volumes typically experience seasonal increases in the summer months that are reflected in second and third quarter revenues and results of operations.

Service or operational disruptions caused by severe storms, extended periods of inclement weather or climate events can significantly affect the operating results of the geographic areas affected. Extreme weather events may also lead to supply chain disruption and delayed project development, or disruption of our customers’ businesses, reducing the amount of waste generated by their operations.

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Conversely, certain destructive weather and climate conditions, such as wildfires in the Western U.S. and hurricanes that most often impact our operations in the Southern and Eastern U.S. during the second half of the year, can increase our revenues in the geographic areas affected as a result of the waste volumes generated by these events. While weather-related and other event-driven special projects can boost revenues through additional work for a limited time, due to significant start-up costs and other factors, such revenue can generate earnings at comparatively lower margins.

Human Capital Resources

Employees

As of December 31, 2025, we had approximately 60,500 full-time employees across the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, and India. Approximately 53,600 employees were located within the U.S. and 6,900 employees were located outside of the U.S. Approximately 8,400 employees were employed in administrative and sales positions with the remainder in operations. Approximately 9,200 of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. Additional information about our workforce can be found in our 2025 Sustainability Report at sustainability.wm.com. Our 2025 Sustainability Report does not constitute a part of, and is not incorporated by reference into, this report or any other report we file with (or furnish to) the SEC, whether made before or after the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

People First Commitment

Our People First commitment means knowing that the daily contributions of our team members are what enable us to play a vital role in the communities we serve. Our success depends upon effective leadership, the contributions of each employee and our ability to give them the tools they need to safely execute their roles as well as to develop and excel in their careers. As our industry and workforce evolve, we are focused on our imperatives of keeping our employees safe, being an inclusive employer at all levels of our Company, managing employee turnover, increasing retention, succession planning and development, and supporting employee experience, ongoing cultural integration and knowledge transfer. We regularly focus on these objectives when managing our business.

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We strive to be a workplace of choice through competitive pay, comprehensive benefits for long-term financial and personal health and opportunities for growth across our ranks. "We Are WM" is our Employer Value Proposition, grounded in our People First commitment and shared through a framework that enables us to demonstrate that we are (i) investing in our teams by providing comprehensive benefits; (ii) committed to the growth of our team by providing state-of-the-art trainings and our education benefit, Your Tomorrow, as further discussed under Compensation and Benefits; (iii) performing essential and meaningful work and (iv) working for a sustainable tomorrow by leaving the world a better place than we found it. Being an employer of choice is critical to our efforts to attract and retain a high-quality workforce, while motivating us to sharpen our focus on our values that help us empower and develop good employees. By promoting from within and offering training and experiential opportunities, we help employees maximize their effectiveness and grow in their careers.

Safety as a Core Value

At the Company, safety is a core value, with no compromise. A large number of our employee population work as drivers, heavy equipment operators, technicians and sorters, which are essential jobs that carry inherent risks. For nearly 20 years, we have engaged employees on safety to continually improve our culture and performance. As part of those efforts, in 2023 we developed and implemented a new safety vision for WM, which seeks to ensure that our employees make health and safety the foundation of their work, guiding each step they take. Our safety commitment is to value every voice, protect our communities, and work to enable everyone to get home safe, every day. Employees learn safety best practices through new-hire training, onboarding programs and ongoing training. To build upon lessons learned in training, we conduct structured observations of frontline employees that cover all aspects of our collection and post-collection operations, including driving, loading, unloading, lifting and lowering and arriving prepared for work. In 2022, the Company announced a safety goal focused on reduction of our Total Recordable Incident Rate (“TRIR”), targeting 2.0 annually by 2030, and continued focus on prevention of serious injuries. TRIR measures the number of OSHA recordable injuries occurring per 200,000 hours. Our TRIR as of December 31, 2025 was 3.14, approximately a 3% improvement from 2024. While our overall results in 2025 did not demonstrate significant progress toward the 2030 goal, we continue

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to focus efforts on priority districts and integrating safety culture and reporting throughout operations, including through acquisition activity. We often find that the discipline and culture of the Company benefit acquired businesses. Accordingly, while acquisitions can impact metric performance related to our established goal, we are confident that our programs and processes will continue to reduce incident frequency and severity in our operations in the years ahead. The Company reduced overall TRIR (2.8%), OSHA recordable (5.1%), and Lost Time (4.9%) injuries in 2025 and remains focused on the prevention of serious injuries.

Cultivating Belonging

We embrace and cultivate respect, trust, open communications and diversity of thought and people. We are committed to fostering an environment where all team members feel welcomed, valued and seen. Our commitment to a culture of belonging is reflected in the diverse backgrounds of our Board of Directors and senior leadership team and in our overall workforce in the U.S., which is comprised of individuals of all ethnicities and genders. Additional information about our workforce can be found in our 2025 Sustainability Report at sustainability.wm.com. We are proud of what we have been able to achieve so far, and we will continue to strive to further embed a culture of belonging within the Company. To enable us to achieve a workplace where all feel welcomed and valued, we are committed to evaluating our policies, practices and procedures, recruitment and partnerships to ensure that our efforts are fair, sustainable and tied to our business strategy.

Learning and Development

We offer expansive learning and development solutions to meet the development needs of our people and support opportunities for growth and improvement. Our talent management strategy is designed to reach employees at all levels. Given the wide variety of employee roles and skill sets in our Company, our training and development programs are varied but generally fall into the following categories: (i) compliance, including Code of Conduct and cybersecurity training; (ii) safety; (iii) environmental excellence; (iv) professional development and leadership and (v) job-specific.

Compensation and Benefits

The objective of our compensation and benefit programs is to attract, engage, reward and incentivize valuable employees who will drive the successful execution of our strategy. We pay the full cost to provide employees with short- term disability benefits, long-term disability benefits, basic life insurance for the employee and their dependents, and employee and family assistance benefits. The costs for medical and dental coverage are shared with employees, with the Company paying for a majority of the premium expense. The Company offers other important benefits such as paid vacation and holidays, mental health services, legal services, flexible spending accounts, dependent care assistance, adoption assistance, employee discounts and student loan refinancing services. We also recognize the value of learning beyond the workplace. Our education benefit, Your Tomorrow, makes a contribution toward benefits-eligible employees’ tuition for a broad range of four-year college degree programs, as well as programs such as high-school equivalency and other certificate programs and graduate degrees. We also provide plans to help employees save for their future for example, through our 401(k) retirement savings plan. Refer to Note 9 to the Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information on our employee benefit plans.

Financial Assurance and Insurance Obligations

Financial Assurance

Municipal and governmental waste service contracts generally require contracting parties to demonstrate financial responsibility for their obligations under the contract. Financial assurance is also a requirement for (i) obtaining or retaining disposal site or transfer station operating permits; (ii) supporting certain variable-rate tax-exempt debt and (iii) estimated final capping, closure, post-closure and environmental remedial obligations at many of our landfills. We establish financial assurance using surety bonds, letters of credit, insurance policies, trust and escrow agreements and financial guarantees. The type of assurance used is based on several factors, most importantly: the jurisdiction, contractual requirements, market factors and availability of credit capacity.

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Surety bonds and insurance policies are supported by either (i) a diverse group of third-party surety and insurance companies; (ii) an entity in which we have a noncontrolling financial interest or (iii) a wholly-owned insurance captive, the sole business of which is to issue surety bonds and/or insurance policies on our behalf. Letters of credit generally are supported by our long-term U.S. and Canadian revolving credit facility (“$3.5 billion revolving credit facility”) and other credit lines established for that purpose.

Insurance

We carry a broad range of insurance coverages, including health and welfare, general liability, automobile liability, workers’ compensation, real and personal property, directors’ and officers’ liability, pollution legal liability, cyber incident liability and other coverages we believe are customary to the industry. Our exposure to loss for insurance claims is generally limited to the per-incident deductible under the related insurance policy and any amounts that exceed our insured limits. We use a wholly-owned insurance captive to insure the deductibles for our general liability, automobile liability and workers’ compensation claims programs. We do not expect the impact of any known casualty, property, environmental or other contingency to have a material impact on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. Our estimated insurance liabilities as of December 31, 2025 are summarized in Note 10 to the Consolidated Financial Statements.

Regulation

Overview

Our business is subject to extensive and evolving laws and regulations pertaining to environmental protection, health, safety, land use, zoning, transportation, ethical business conduct, data privacy and security, and other related and similar subjects. These laws and regulations are administered by the EPA, Environment and Climate Change Canada (“ECCC”), and various other agencies at the federal, state, provincial, regional and local level in the U.S., Canada and other international jurisdictions in which we operate. Many of these agencies regularly examine our operations to monitor compliance with applicable laws and regulations and have the power to enforce compliance, obtain injunctions or impose civil or criminal penalties in cases of violations.

Our business primarily involves the collection, transport, handling, treatment, destruction, and other processing and management of solid waste, medical waste, controlled substances waste, hazardous waste, organics, and recyclables in an environmentally sound manner. A significant amount of our capital expenditures is related, either directly or indirectly, to compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including environmental protection measures. Our November 2024 acquisition of Stericycle increased our exposure to international jurisdictions, primarily Western Europe, and we are subject to laws and regulations in the U.S. and internationally concerning transportation, management and disposal or destruction of medical waste streams, including regulations that govern the definition, generation, segregation, handling, packaging, transportation, treatment, storage and disposal or destruction of medical waste and controlled substances waste, along with extensive recordkeeping and documentation requirements. Additionally, our secure information destruction services are subject to laws and regulations regarding proper handling and protection of personal and confidential information.

There are costs associated with siting, design, permitting, construction, operating, monitoring, site maintenance, corrective actions, financial assurance and closure and post-closure obligations at our facilities. In connection with the acquisition, development or expansion of a waste management or disposal facility, recycling facility, compost facility, transfer station, processing facility, or landfill gas-to-energy facility, or the transport, handling, treatment and disposal or destruction of various waste streams, we must often spend considerable time, effort and money to obtain and maintain required permits and approvals. There are no assurances that we will be able to obtain or maintain permits or other required governmental approvals. Once obtained, permits are subject to renewal, modification, suspension or revocation by the issuing authority. Permit issuance or renewal may also be subject to public participation or other governmental reviews and may be subject to challenges and delays. Compliance with current regulations and future requirements could require us to make significant capital and operating expenditures. However, most of these expenditures are made in the normal course of business and do not place us at a competitive disadvantage.

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The regulatory environment in which we operate is influenced by changes in governmental administrations and leadership. The current administration has called for, and undertaken, substantial changes to areas of foreign trade policy and is generally in favor of reducing regulation, including environmental regulation. The impact and timing of these shifts in regulatory policy impacting our industry and our Company remain uncertain, as many are subject to ongoing litigation and agency review. Further, state and municipal governments may impose additional regulatory duties in response to such shifts in federal policy, which could lead to a patchwork of regulatory obligations across the U.S. for our industry and our Company. Reduction of regulation may have a favorable impact on our operating costs, but the extensive environmental regulation applicable to our industry is also a barrier to rapid entry that benefits our Company. Moreover, the risk reduction provided by appropriate regulation is valuable to our customers and the communities we serve. Significant restrictions and tariffs on foreign trade could have a negative impact on our recycling export business and our cross-border commerce, particularly with Canada, and could increase the cost of certain equipment and other materials used in our operations that we procure from outside the U.S., including our trucks and certain equipment used to implement our sustainability growth strategy. It is likely that some policies adopted by the administration will benefit us and others will negatively affect us.

In 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a number of decisions that will affect the future of federal regulation, including Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo. The Loper decision overturned the Chevron doctrine, which had held that a court must give deference to a regulatory agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute the agency implements. The full impact of that decision is not yet known, but at a minimum, our operations could face increased regulatory uncertainty in connection with legal challenges to agency actions and rulemakings impacting our industry.

Federal Regulation

Certain key U.S. federal statutes affecting our business are summarized below:

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Our operations are primarily in the U.S.; however, Canada and other countries in which we operate have various environmental, safety, health, transportation and materials handling laws and regulations that we must comply with in the ordinary course of our business.

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State, Provincial, Regional and Local Regulations

There are also various state, provincial, regional and local regulations, in the U.S. and internationally, that affect our operations and may require a specific operating plan. Many jurisdictions in which we operate have their own laws and regulations governing solid waste disposal, including for hazardous wastes, medical wastes and controlled substances wastes; water and air pollution; and, in most cases, releases and cleanup of hazardous substances and liabilities for such matters. Many governmental organizations have also adopted regulations governing the design, operation, maintenance and closure of landfills, transfer stations, incineration facilities and processing facilities, and laws governing where recyclable materials can be sold.

Our landfill operations are affected by the increasing preference for alternatives to landfill disposal. Many state and local governments mandate recycling and waste reduction at the source and prohibit the disposal of certain types of materials at landfills, such as recyclable materials (cardboard, bottles and cans), yard waste, food waste and electronics.

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The number of governments with recycling and diversion requirements and disposal bans continues to grow, while the logistics and economics of recycling or processing many of these items remain challenging. In addition, regulations requiring the diversion of organic wastes away from landfills could have the effect of decreasing the amount of landfill gas produced over time in our landfills, negatively impacting our Renewable Energy segment.

Various states have enacted, or are considering enacting, laws that restrict or discourage the disposal of solid waste generated outside the state. While laws that overtly discriminate against out-of-state waste have been found to be unconstitutional, some laws that are less overtly discriminatory have been upheld in court. From time to time, the U.S. Congress has considered legislation authorizing states to adopt regulations, restrictions, or taxes on the importation of out-of-state or out-of-jurisdiction waste. Additionally, several state and local governments have enacted “flow control” regulations, which attempt to require that all waste generated within the state or local jurisdiction be deposited at specific sites, which has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court for waste directed to facilities owned by the local government. The U.S. Congress’ adoption of legislation allowing restrictions on interstate transportation of out-of-state or out-of-jurisdiction waste or certain types of flow control, or courts’ interpretations of interstate waste and flow control legislation, could adversely affect our solid waste, hazardous waste, medical waste and controlled substances management services.

Many governmental organizations have enacted “fitness” laws that allow the agencies that have jurisdiction over waste services contracts or permits to deny or revoke these contracts or permits based on the applicant’s or permit holder’s compliance history. Some governmental organizations also consider the compliance history of the parent, subsidiaries or affiliated companies, in addition to the applicant or permit holder. These laws authorize the agencies to make determinations of an applicant’s or permit holder’s fitness to be awarded a contract to operate, and to deny or revoke a contract or permit because of unfitness, unless there is a showing that the applicant or permit holder has been rehabilitated through the adoption of various operating policies and procedures put in place to assure future compliance with applicable laws and regulations. While fitness laws can present potential increased costs and barriers to entry into market areas, these laws have not, and are not expected to have a material adverse impact on our business as a whole.

The EPA does not regulate medical waste at the federal level, with some limited exceptions, resulting in a lack of uniformity of applicable laws and regulations. States have adopted their own regulations related to the handling, treatment and storage of medical waste, with many states following requirements similar to the Medical Waste Tracking Act of 1988, a U.S. federal law concerning disposal of biological material that expired in 1991. Other states have placed medical waste regulations within solid waste regulations. Further, while the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment has promulgated the Guidelines for the Management of Biomedical Waste in Canada, these are not enforceable unless adopted by provincial legislation or municipal by-laws, and local by-laws may be more stringent than such guidelines.

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Recent Developments and Focus Areas in Policy and Regulation

Climate and Sustainability

Certain jurisdictions are taking action to reduce greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions through a broad range of climate policies. Landfills are one of the focal points for advancing climate-related goals, and we are actively working with policymakers to promote recognition of the significant reductions in GHG emissions that our industry already has achieved and the work being done to further measure and reduce emissions, the challenges associated with quantifying landfill emissions precisely, and the role of our sector in providing an essential, and highly regulated, public service.

We are closely monitoring the evolving capabilities of ground, aerial and satellite-based methane detection and monitoring systems and conducting our own research at several landfills to assess accuracy and reliability of various methane measurement technologies for applicability to our operations. We also continue to expand our work with various private and government entities employing such technologies at our sites, and we are actively engaged with the EPA, the ECCC, state agencies, nongovernmental organizations and environmental stakeholders on the implications of the changing landscape for the waste industry and potential future regulation. Continued dialogue, engagement and collaboration with these regulatory agencies will be important, as the EPA, the ECCC and several states, including California and Colorado,  are evaluating landfill emissions standards that may require the application of various emerging methane measurement technologies and plan to develop methods and standards for such measurement technologies. While we cannot predict

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what regulations will result from these initiatives, these developments could result in increased compliance costs and adversely affect our operations. Specifically, these various regulatory actions could result in changes to how we have historically reported GHG emissions and may result in increases in such emissions reported for our operations. For example, in August 2024, the EPA released revised emission factors for the reporting of methane emissions from landfills that would, amongst other matters, result in increased reported emissions from flares and other equipment and processes. Industry groups have filed legal challenges to the EPA’s updated emission factors, and the EPA granted the industry’s petition for reconsideration. In September 2025, the EPA announced a proposed rule to significantly revise the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The proposal would eliminate reporting requirements for numerous source categories, including landfills. This uncertainty regarding the status of the federal reporting program could result in increased state-level GHG reporting requirements.

In light of customer demand, we have identified strategic business opportunities to provide our public and private sector customers with sustainability-related solutions intended to have the potential to reduce GHG emissions across their respective businesses. We assess customer demand for and opportunities to develop waste services with potential to avoid lifecycle emissions, such as waste reduction, increased recycling, composting and conversion of landfill gas and discarded materials into renewable energy. Demand and willingness to pay premium prices for recycled materials or enhanced sustainability solutions can fluctuate based on economic conditions, consumer preferences and trends. We use estimated lifecycle emissions assessments in evaluating potential new services and in establishing the value proposition that makes us attractive as an environmental service provider. We are active in support of public policies that encourage development and use of lower carbon energy and waste services that can lower lifecycle carbon footprints. We understand the importance of broad stakeholder engagement in these endeavors and actively seek opportunities for public policy discussion on how materials management practices can be more sustainable. In addition, we work with stakeholders at the federal, state, and provincial level in support of legislation that encourages production and use of renewable, lower-carbon fuels and electricity.

The nature, scope, and complexity of matters that our Company must assess, quantify and disclose are expanding due to current, proposed, and recently enacted governmental reporting requirements pertaining to sustainability and climate-related risks and other topics. Such topics include water usage, waste production, labor, human capital, cybersecurity, privacy and risk oversight. For example, in September 2024, the California Governor signed into law amendments to the 2023 California Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act and the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, which among other things, requires the disclosure of Scope 1, 2, and 3 GHG emissions and other climate-related financial risks consistent with the framework established by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures. We potentially will be required to begin making disclosures of our Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions in compliance with certain of these requirements in 2026, and Scope 3 GHG emissions disclosures will be required beginning in 2027. Additional U.S. states are in various stages of considering adoption of similar climate-related disclosure requirements. While the SEC voluntarily stayed implementation of its climate related disclosure rules indefinitely, and voted to end its defense of those rules in March 2025, the state-level and other similar laws and regulations could result in increased compliance costs and affect the results of our operations and financial position. Such laws and regulations could also increase our litigation risks or may increase risks related to our reputation or goodwill, as we cannot predict how disclosures under these laws may be perceived or interpreted by our customers and stakeholders. Methodology and timelines for mandatory reporting requirements may be inconsistent with requirements enacted by other governmental entities, including with respect to measuring emissions and requiring a determination of “materiality” that may differ from traditional disclosure requirements under U.S. federal securities laws. Such inconsistency could further increase costs and divert management time and attention.

Our industry faces challenges to implement these rapidly developing disclosure requirements, as well as the risk of enforcement actions by governmental and regulatory agencies for noncompliance. Significant expenditures and commitment of time by management, employees and consultants is involved in developing, implementing and overseeing policies, practices, additional disclosures and internal controls related to environmental and sustainability risk and performance. Public statements with respect to sustainability matters are subject to heightened scrutiny related to the risk of potential “greenwashing,” i.e., allegations of misleading information or false claims overstating potential sustainability benefits made by governmental authorities, non-governmental organizations and other private actors.

Consistent with our Company’s long-standing commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship, we have published our 2025 Sustainability Report, providing details on our sustainability-related performance and outlining

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progress towards our 2030 sustainability goals. The annual Sustainability Report conveys the strong linkage between the Company’s sustainability goals and our growth strategy, inclusive of the expansion of the Company’s Recycling Processing and Sales and Renewable Energy segments. The information in this report can be found at sustainability.wm.com but it does not constitute a part of, and is not incorporated by reference into, this Annual Report on Form 10-K. The Company also participates in a number of voluntary reporting programs and frameworks that provide further transparency on our commitment to sustainability.

PFAS

Federal and state governments have increased their focus on efforts to safeguard communities from the potentially harmful effects associated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”). PFAS are a large group of chemicals that have been used in industrial and consumer products since the 1940s, including in products as diverse as carpets, paints and stains, water-resistant clothing and fabrics, nonstick cookware, food packaging, and firefighting chemicals. Possible human health effects of exposure to certain PFAS compounds may include low infant birth weights, immune system impacts, or cancer.

There are a number of risks related to PFAS that could impact our business, and the EPA has prioritized PFAS-related issues in recent years. For example, in 2021, the EPA released its PFAS Strategic Roadmap, providing a high-level overview of activities that the agency intends to take to safeguard public health, protect the environment and hold polluters accountable. These actions include establishing drinking water standards, evaluating landfill discharges of PFAS in leachate, finalizing new risk assessments and test procedures and updating guidance on PFAS disposal and destruction options. In April 2024, the EPA finalized the designation of two PFAS compounds (perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS)) as hazardous substances under CERCLA. We are actively working with both Congress and the EPA to provide landfills and other essential public services with relief from CERCLA liability and instead hold accountable manufacturers and heavy users of these compounds. Without such relief, we may face increased exposure to remediation and litigation costs associated with properties that the EPA may designate as CERCLA sites due to the presence of PFAS. Additionally, the EPA is pursuing legally enforceable maximum contaminant levels, as well as non-enforceable maximum contaminant level goals, for PFAS compounds in drinking water. We expect that there could be continued efforts to regulate or impose liability with respect to PFAS at the federal level. At the state level, an increasing number of jurisdictions have enacted new drinking water, surface water and/or groundwater limits for various PFAS compounds, which has led to a patchwork of PFAS standards across the U.S. Compliance with new and future state and federal PFAS standards is anticipated to result in additional expense to the Company, but such standards are also anticipated to present potential business opportunities in the area of PFAS management, treatment and disposal.

Recycling; Foreign Import and Export Regulations and Material Restrictions

Regulations affecting, and in some cases restricting, the international flow of certain recyclables have led to a reduction in export activity for such recyclables, as well as higher quality requirements, and higher processing costs. We do not ship plastics collected on our residential recycling routes and processed at our single stream recycling facilities to locations outside of North America, except in very limited circumstances when no other commercially viable domestic markets are available; however, current and developing international regulations may limit our ability to export other commodities, including certain plastics. Additionally, the current U.S. presidential administration has called for, and undertaken, substantial changes to foreign trade policy. Significant restrictions and tariffs on foreign trade have a negative impact on our recycling export business, including decreasing paper mills’ demand for recycled corrugated cardboard used in packaging, which can constrict availability of counterparties and negatively impact commodity prices, and increase the cost of certain equipment and other materials used in our operations that we procure from outside the U.S., including certain equipment used to implement our sustainability growth strategy.

Prices and demand for recyclables fluctuate. We have discussed our sustainability growth strategy that includes significant investments in our recycling business to increase automation and reduce labor dependency. Such investments are also targeted at addressing increases in regulatory- and customer-driven quality requirements for commodities. These investments increase our exposure to commodity price fluctuations. We mitigate some of the effects of price fluctuation through the contract terms pursuant to which we sell commodities, such as floor pricing. Additionally, regulation, tariffs, international trade policies or other initiatives, including extended producer responsibility regulations, minimum recycled

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content laws, container deposit laws, or regulations addressing climate change or GHG emissions, may impact supply and demand of material, or increase operating costs, which could impact the profitability of our recycling operations.

With a heightened awareness of the global problems caused by plastic waste in the environment, and actual or perceived risks for human health, many governments have passed ordinances banning certain types of plastics from sale or use. The most common materials banned include plastic bags and straws, polystyrene plastic and some types of single use packaging. These bans have resulted in increased pressure by manufacturers for our recycling facilities to accept a broader array of materials in curbside recycling and composting programs to alleviate public pressures to ban the sale of those materials. However, with no or limited viable end markets for many of these materials, we and other recyclers are working to educate and remind customers of the need for end market demand and economic viability to support the inclusion of certain materials in recycling programs.

Extended Producer Responsibility

Regulations establishing extended producer responsibility (“EPR”) are being considered or implemented in many places around the world, including in certain states in the U.S. and provinces and territories in Canada. EPR regulations are designed to place either partial or total responsibility on producers of consumer-packaged goods and other products to fund the post-use life cycle of the products and packaging they create. Along with the funding responsibility, producers may be required to undertake additional responsibilities, such as taking over management of local recycling programs by taking back their products from end users or managing the collection operations and recycling processing and marketing infrastructure. During periods of economic difficulty, governmental entities have increased their interest in implementing EPR regulations to reduce municipal spending on recycling programs. There is no federal law establishing EPR in the U.S. or Canada; however, governments could take, and in some cases have taken, steps to implement EPR regulations for packaging, including traditional recyclables such as cardboard, bottles and cans. If wide-ranging EPR regulations or other recycling-related regulations like container deposit laws are widely adopted, they could significantly impact the waste, recycling and other streams we manage, including with respect to quality and volume, how we operate our business, including contract terms and pricing, and the profitability of our recycling facilities. At the same time, concerns regarding price and affordability have led some jurisdictions to scale back previously enacted EPR requirements, creating uncertainty for long-term planning. Lawsuits have been filed in certain jurisdictions, contesting the constitutionality of certain programs, and the U.S. Department of Justice has indicated that state EPR laws may be among those subject to constitutional review. Deregulatory rulings or changes in program requirements in jurisdictions where we have adapted to meet customer demand may impact our operations, financial condition or result of operations.

EPR implementation also involves new operational requirements and information-sharing obligations that affect how recycling programs are managed. Compliance with EPR laws often requires us to provide detailed operational data to state agencies, producer responsibility organizations and their consultants in connection with needs assessments and tracking of material recyclability. This includes sharing information that is typically considered competitively sensitive. Where feasible, we enter into non-disclosure agreements to safeguard such information.

Tax Legislation

On July 4, 2025, President Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (“OBBBA”) into law. We have evaluated the business tax provisions in the legislation, none of which had a material impact on our effective tax rate. However, we had a beneficial impact to cash taxes related to bonus depreciation.

The OBBBA also reaffirmed and extended various tax-related provisions included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (the “IRA”) of relevance to the company, including with respect to tax incentives for investments in renewable energy production, carbon capture and other climate actions. Given the complexity and uncertainty around the administration’s implementation of certain tax credits, we continue to analyze this area to identify and quantify potential opportunities and applicable benefits included in the legislation. We believe that the production tax credit incentives for investments in renewable energy and carbon capture, as reaffirmed and expanded by the OBBBA, may result in an incremental benefit to the Company, although at this time, the anticipated amount of such benefit has not been quantified due, in part, to the lack of regulatory guidance.

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Investment in Natural Gas Vehicles and Infrastructure

We operate a large fleet of natural gas vehicles, and we plan to continue to invest in these assets for our collection fleet. Natural gas fueling infrastructure is not yet broadly available in the U.S. and Canada; as a result, we have constructed and operate natural gas fueling stations, some of which also serve the public or pre-approved third parties. There is increasing pressure to reduce the use of fossil fuel in the heavy-duty truck industry, and some regulatory bodies are pursuing requirements for using alternative engine technology, such as electric powered vehicles, rather than natural gas or diesel vehicles. This is resulting in regulatory actions to advance the adoption of zero-emission vehicles and a shift away from tax incentives and grants for natural gas trucks and RNG infrastructure. For example, in April 2024, the EPA established new GHG emissions standards applicable to heavy-duty vehicles that rely on increased deployment of electric vehicles to meet declining emissions targets; however, the current administration has signaled its intent to withdraw these regulations. California also has been active in pursuing policies promoting vehicle electrification, despite U.S. Congressional and presidential administration efforts to push back on the state’s electrification agenda. The full impact of these standards and regulations is uncertain, as several of the specific regulations are the subject of legal challenge and could impact our long-term vehicle fleet strategies.

Current options for heavy-duty electric powered vehicles lack sufficient range, recharging infrastructure and efficiency and proven experience for our operations, but we are proactively engaging in pilots of electric powered heavy-duty vehicles and anticipate that we could redirect future planned capital investments in our fleet toward these assets when the vehicles prove economically and operationally viable. We also are actively working with policymakers to help them understand the challenges involving the electrification of heavy-duty collection vehicles. If regulation requires widespread adoption of electric powered vehicles before the technology improves, we may suffer operational inefficiencies and incur higher operating costs. Regulation mandating an accelerated transition to electric powered vehicles would increase our cost to acquire vehicles needed to service our customers, and capital investment required to establish sufficient charging infrastructure could be significant. Additionally, the investments we have made in an industry-leading natural gas fleet and infrastructure could be impaired. Tax incentives and grants that advance the adoption of zero-emissions vehicles and lead to a shift away from natural gas trucks and RNG infrastructure would likely also negatively impact our investments in RNG production facilities.

Renewable Energy

In recent years, we have discussed our sustainability growth strategy that includes significant planned and ongoing investments in our Renewable Energy segment. We have invested, and continue to invest, in facilities to capture methane produced from the Company’s landfills and process it into RNG and electricity. RNG produced from our landfills constitutes a significant source of fuel allocated to our natural gas collection vehicles. The primary drivers of renewable fuel development at our landfills are tax policies, such as federal tax credits for investments in RNG production under the IRA and OBBBA, and federal and state incentive programs, such as the federal RFS program, California Low Carbon Fuel Standard and similar state programs that promote the production and use of renewable transportation fuels. At the federal level, oil refiners and importers are required through the RFS program to blend specified volumes of various categories of renewable transportation fuels with gasoline or buy credits, referred to as RINs, from renewable fuel producers. Many of our facilities are EPA-registered producers of transportation fuel making compressed and liquefied RNG from landfill biogas, which qualifies as a cellulosic biofuel under the RFS program. The Company has invested, and continues to invest, in facilities that capture and process landfill gas into RNG so that we can participate in the RFS program, and the Company has grown and stated its intention to continue to grow its asset base to increase its RNG production.

RINs prices generally respond to regulations enacted by the EPA, as well as fluctuations in supply and demand. The value of the RINs is set through a market established by the RFS program, which market has historically been volatile. Prior to 2022, the EPA had promulgated rules on an annual basis establishing refiners’ obligations to purchase RNG and other cellulosic biofuels under the RFS program, which introduced a level of uncertainty into the renewable fuels and RINs market. However, in 2023, the EPA issued a rule establishing biofuel blending volumes under the RFS program for compliance years 2023 through 2025. The rule reflected the outsized role of biogas under the program, delivered on many reforms that benefit the solid waste sector, and recognized the continued growth of the market for RNG in vehicle applications. The current U.S. presidential administration, meanwhile, revisited and retroactively lowered the 2024 blending volumes, has proposed to revisit and lower the 2025 standards, has proposed low volumes for compliance years

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2026 and 2027 and departed from the previous administration in granting small refinery exemptions from RFS program requirements. We do not yet know how these changes may impact the demand for renewable fuels and the value of RINs. In an effort to mitigate against such risk and stabilize our RNG portfolio, we are pursuing long-term RNG sales transactions in the voluntary market. We continue to advocate for policies that could reduce the potential for volatility in the RINs market and ensure long-term stability for renewable transportation fuels, as changes in the RINs market or the structure of the RFS program can and has impacted the financial performance of our facilities. We are closely working with state policymakers and non-governmental stakeholders to understand the role of RNG as a renewable energy resource and in delivering GHG reductions.

The Company’s sustainability growth strategy also is informed by the increased adoption of state and Canadian clean fuel standard programs, utility policies, and voluntary market demand for RNG in transportation and industrial applications. Clean fuel standard programs, originally developed in California and subsequently adopted in Oregon, Washington, and New Mexico, establish annual carbon intensity benchmarks for transportation fuels that decrease over time. A similar program has been adopted in Canada under the Clean Fuel Regulations. These programs operate similar to the RFS program in that certain regulated parties purchase credits from fuel producers, including RNG producers, to meet their carbon intensity obligations. Like RINs, clean fuel standard program credit values can fluctuate with policy and market dynamics. As such, we are advocating for existing programs to adopt measures to promote stability in credit pricing and for other states to adopt similar programs that incentivize the growth in RNG. We also are working closely with stakeholders to encourage the voluntary market for RNG demand, including utility RNG procurement programs, and sustainability protocols, as companies and other customers increasingly look to reduce their GHG emissions profiles. However, these state and voluntary programs may be altered, paused, or otherwise revoked by the applicable governmental authorities or as result of legal challenges.

Community Engagement – Environmental Justice

Certain governmental bodies are in various stages of adopting or considering the adoption of requirements for environmental justice reviews as part of certain permitting decisions. These policies generally require permitting agencies to give heightened attention to a project’s potential to disproportionately impact low-income and minority communities and to proactively plan for community engagement. Environmental justice and community consultation considerations are also being increasingly adopted beyond permitting actions; for example, in rulemaking and enforcement priorities. Our Company supports policies seeking to advance high standards of environmental performance and the fair treatment of people of all races, cultures, and incomes, and we continue to proactively engage with local communities. We are actively monitoring regulatory developments in this area, particularly with respect to permitting, as additional conditions imposed on permitting decisions could increase the time and cost involved to pursue and maintain necessary authorizations.

Privacy and Information Security Regulation

Various U.S. and international laws and regulations related to data privacy, the protection of confidential information and secure information destruction services apply to our business. Applicable laws require businesses to provide notice under certain circumstances to individuals and/or regulators where personal information has been disclosed in a data breach. Regulatory enforcement action concerning privacy and security is generally increasing, including significant fines imposed by regulators. Secure handling and disposal of waste that may contain sensitive information may be subject to heightened privacy requirements, and in the event of a breach, could result in regulatory penalties or wider enforcement action, reputational harm, and financial liabilities.

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