Clean Harbors, Inc. (Clean Harbors) provides sustainable environmental and industrial services throughout North America.
The company strives to provide eco-friendly services and products that protect and restore North America's natural environment. The company is also the largest provider of parts cleaning and related environmental services to general manufacturing, automotive and commercial customers in North America and the largest re-refiner and recycler of used oil in North America.
The co...
Clean Harbors, Inc. (Clean Harbors) provides sustainable environmental and industrial services throughout North America.
The company strives to provide eco-friendly services and products that protect and restore North America's natural environment. The company is also the largest provider of parts cleaning and related environmental services to general manufacturing, automotive and commercial customers in North America and the largest re-refiner and recycler of used oil in North America.
The company provides sustainable solutions that help its customers protect the environment. The company owns ten commercial hazardous waste incinerators, including its newest incinerator in Kimball, Nebraska, which commenced operations in late 2024.
The company operates the largest number of commercial hazardous waste incinerators, landfills, treatment facilities and TSDFs in North America. The company also operates its significant fleet of more than 20,000 vehicles across coast to coast network.
Strategy
The company’s strategy involves leveraging its core competitive strengths to develop and maintain ongoing relationships with a diversified group of customers while continuing to grow the company’s service lines, ensuring that it can meet its customers' changing environmental and sustainability needs. Targeted marketing opportunities allow the company to expand market awareness of the breadth of its service offerings to customers.
The principal elements of the company’s business strategy are to cross-sell its solutions; expand its network and suite of offerings; pursue acquisitions and divestitures; execute on productivity initiatives; and foster innovation through technology.
Segments
The company operate through two segments: Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions.
Environmental Services segment
Environmental Services business offers an array of services to customers. The company safely collects, transports, treats and disposes of hazardous and non-hazardous waste through the company’s network of over 100 waste disposal facilities, including incinerators, landfills, and treatment, storage and disposal facilities (‘TSDFs’). The company’s emergency response services leverage specialized equipment, expertise and responsiveness to support the company’s customers. The company also leverages its assets to perform a wide range of industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services, both planned and unplanned. The company collects containerized waste and provides parts washer and vacuum services to small quantity generators of hazardous waste. All of these services are designed to protect the environment and address environmental related challenges through the use of innovation and the latest technologies. The company provides customers with sustainable solutions that seek to recycle waste materials whenever possible.
The company safely collects, transports, treats and disposes of hazardous and non-hazardous waste, including resource recovery, physical treatment, fuel blending, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemical disposal, explosives management and CleanPack services. The company’s CleanPack services include the collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. The company performs a wide range of industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services and utilize specialty equipment and resources to perform services at any chosen location on a planned or emergency response basis.
The Environmental Services segment results are depends upon the demand by the company’s customers for its wide variety of services, waste volumes managed by delivering such services and project work for which responsible waste handling and/or disposal is required. Environmental Services results are also impacted by the demand for planned and unplanned industrial related cleaning and maintenance services at customer sites, environmental cleanup services on a scheduled or emergency basis, including response to large scale events, such as major chemical spills, natural disasters, or other instances where immediate and specialized services are required. The Environmental Services segment results include the company’s Safety-Kleen branches' core environmental service offerings, such as containerized waste disposal, parts washer and vacuum services. These results are driven by the volumes of waste collected from these customers, the overall number of parts washers placed at customer sites and the demand for and frequency of other offered services.
Technical Services
The company provides technical services through a network of service centers from which a fleet of vehicles are dispatched to pick up customers' waste either on a predetermined schedule or on demand, and to deliver the waste to permitted facilities, which are usually Company-owned. The company’s service centers can also dispatch chemists to a customer location for collection of chemical and laboratory waste for disposal. InSite Service offerings is a branded on-site/in-plant service delivery program through which the company offers a full range of environmental, industrial and waste management services. This signature program is built on safety, quality, efficiency and integrity, and has been offered by Clean Harbors for more than 30 years. By leveraging Clean Harbors' expertise and capabilities, the company’s on-site crews are dedicated to developing the safest, most cost-effective and sustainable solutions to service customers’ needs.
As an integral part of the company’s services, the company collects industrial waste from customers and transport such waste to and between the company’s facilities for treatment or bulking for shipment to final disposal locations. Waste is typically accumulated in containers, such as 55-gallon drums, bulk storage tanks or 20-cubic-yard roll-off containers. In providing this service, the company utilizes a variety of specially designed and constructed tank trucks and semi-trailers, as well as third-party transporters and rail.
The company recycles, treats and disposes of hazardous and non-hazardous waste. Certain waste handled includes substances, which are classified as ‘hazardous’ because of their corrosive, ignitable, infectious, reactive or toxic properties and other substances subject to federal, state and provincial environmental regulation. The company provides final treatment and disposal services designed to manage waste, which cannot be otherwise safely and/or economically recycled or reused. The waste that the company handles comes in solid, sludge, liquid, and gas form.
Incineration is the preferred method for the treatment of organic hazardous waste because it effectively destroys the contaminants at high temperatures. High temperature incineration safely and efficiently eliminates organic waste, such as herbicides, halogenated solvents, pesticides and pharmaceutical and refinery waste, regardless of form as gas, liquid, sludge or solid. Federal and state incineration regulations require a destruction and removal efficiency of at least 99.99% for most organic waste and the company’s incinerators meet or exceed these requirements.
As of December 31, 2024, the company had ten active incinerators operating in five incineration facilities that offer a wide range of technological capabilities to customers. The company’s incinerator facilities in the United States are designed to process waste through the use of high-tech, high temperature incineration. Its technologies include rotary kiln incineration, which provides greater flexibility in destruction of hazardous waste, and fluidized bed incineration which helps promote a more complete organic combustion than other incineration technologies. The company’s incinerator facility in Lambton, Ontario, is a liquid injection incinerator designed primarily for the destruction of liquid organic waste. Typical waste streams at this location include wastewater with low levels of organics and other higher concentration organic liquid waste not amenable to conventional physical or chemical waste treatment. For 2024, its facilities operated with an annual practical capacity of 561,721 tons.
Landfills are primarily used for disposal of inorganic waste. In the United States and Canada, the company operates seven commercial landfills, six of which are designed and permitted for disposal of hazardous waste and one which is operated for non-hazardous industrial waste disposal. Of its six commercial hazardous waste landfills, four are located in the United States and two are located in Canada. The company’s non-hazardous landfill is located in the United States. In addition to its seven commercial landfills, it also owns and operates one non-commercial landfill that only accepts waste from its Kimball on-site incinerator.
As of December 31, 2024, the useful economic lives of the company’s six commercial hazardous waste landfills included approximately 23.2 million cubic yards of remaining capacity. The company estimates the useful economic lives of landfills to include permitted airspace and unpermitted airspace that is probable of being permitted based on the company’s analysis of various factors. In addition to the capacity included in the useful economic life of these landfills, there are approximately 37.5 million cubic yards of additional unpermitted airspace capacity included in the footprints of these landfills that may ultimately be permitted, although there can be no assurance that this additional capacity will be permitted. As of December 31, 2024, the useful economic life of the company’s non-hazardous industrial landfill included 3.2 million cubic yards of remaining permitted capacity. This facility is located in the United States and has been issued operating permits under Subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (‘RCRA’). The company’s non-hazardous landfill facility is permitted to accept commercial industrial waste, including waste from demolition and construction.
Another waste disposal outlet in the company’s network of facilities are its TSDFs that collect, temporarily store, process and/or consolidate compatible waste streams for more efficient processing and transportation to final recycling, treatment or disposal destinations. These facilities hold special, hard to come by permits, such as Part B permits under the RCRA, which allow them to process, transfer and dispose of waste through various technologies, including recycling, incineration, landfill and wastewater treatment depending on each location's permitted and constructed capabilities.
The company operates recycling systems for the reclamation and reuse of certain waste, particularly solvent-based waste generated by industrial cleaning operations, metal finishing and other manufacturing processes. Resource recovery involves the treatment of waste using various methods, which effectively remove contaminants from the original material to restore its fitness for its intended purpose and to reduce the volume of waste requiring disposal. The company also operates a recycling facility that recycles refinery waste and spent catalyst. The recycled oil and catalysts, depending on market conditions, are sold to third parties.
The company’s wastewater treatment facilities process hazardous and non-hazardous waste through use of physical and chemical treatment methods. The company’s ten wastewater treatment facilities offer or employ a range of wastewater treatment technologies. These facilities treat a broad range of liquid and semi-liquid waste containing heavy metals, organics and suspended solids.
The company also provides total project management services in areas, such as chemical packing, on-site waste management, remediation, compliance training and emergency spill response, while leveraging Clean Harbors' network of service centers and environmental capabilities. The company’s household hazardous waste collection services provide municipalities with a partner for the collection and disposal of household paints, solvents, batteries, fluorescent lamps, pesticides, cleaners, and other hazardous materials.
Industrial Services
The company performs industrial cleaning, maintenance and support services and specialty industrial services at refineries, chemical plants, upgraders, power generation and other utilities facilities, manufacturing facilities and other industrial customers throughout North America.
The company’s industrial services crews support ongoing in-plant cleaning and maintenance services on the company’s customers' mission critical equipment and infrastructure. These services include liquid and dry vacuum services, hydro-blasting, dewatering and materials processing, leak detection and repair, tank cleaning, specialty mechanical services, vapor control, water and chemical hauling, foam cleaning, steam cleaning, ultrasonic cleaning technology and temporary housing services. The company provides a variety of specialized industrial services, including plant outage and turnaround services, specialty cleaning services, including chemical cleaning and high and ultra-high pressure water cleaning, production services, and upstream energy services.
Field and Emergency Response Services
The company’s crews and equipment are dispatched on a planned or emergency basis and perform services, such as large remediation projects, spill cleanup on land and water, demolition, site disinfecting, decontamination and disposal, confined space entry for tank cleaning, railcar cleaning, hydro excavation, manhole/vault clean outs, product recovery and transfer, scarifying and media blasting, vacuum services, filtration, water treatment services, and wetland restoration. The company is also a leader in providing response services for environmental emergencies of any scale from man-made disasters, such as oil spills and natural disasters, such as hurricanes. The company provides field and emergency response services to a variety of customers across industries including utilities, manufacturing, transportation services, and more. In March 2024, acquisition of HEPACO Blocker, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, ‘HEPACO’) has expanded its field and emergency response services with HEPACO’s leading emergency response dispatching and management capabilities.
Safety-Kleen Environmental Core Services
The company’s Safety-Kleen Environmental branches' core service offerings focus on the small quantity waste generators predominately within the general manufacturing, automotive, and retail space. The company provides containerized waste, parts-washer and vacuum services to a diverse range of customers, including automobile repair shops, car and truck dealers, metal fabricators, machine manufacturers, fleet maintenance shops and other automotive, industrial and retail customers. The company provides pickup and transportation of hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal, primarily through the Clean Harbors' network of recycling, treatment and disposal facilities. As the largest provider of parts cleaning services in North America, the company offers a complete line of specially designed parts washers to customer locations and then deliver recurring service that includes machine cleaning and maintenance and disposal and replenishment of clean solvent or aqueous fluids. The company’s vacuum services remove solids, residual oily water and sludge and other fluids from customers' oil/water separators, sumps and collection tanks. The company also removes and collects waste fluids found at large and small industrial locations, including metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers and general manufacturers.
Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment
Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions (‘SKSS’) business offerings span the life-cycle of oil and other sustainable lubricant products. These operations center around the company’s eight re-refineries located in East Chicago, Indiana; Breslau, Ontario; Fallon, Nevada; Kingsland, Georgia; Tacoma, Washington; Wichita, Kansas; Rollinsford, New Hampshire; and Sanford, North Carolina.
Using the company’s nationwide fleet of trucks, tankers, rail-cars, and barges, the company’s teams collect used oil from thousands of customers, which serves as feedstock for the company’s oil re-refineries. In 2024, the company collected 253 million gallons of used oil. The company’s processes allow it to realize oil's capacity to be recycled and reused. The company processes the used oil into a variety of products, mostly base oils, including Group III base oils in 2024, and blended lubricating oils. The company’s Performance Plus family of automotive and industrial lubricants are sold to on- and off-road corporate fleets, government entities, automotive service shops and industrial plants for hydraulic components, motors, pumps and valves. The company’s anti-wear hydraulic oils and lubricants provide extended operating life, protection from corrosion and abrasion and improved cleanliness. The company also sells unbranded blended oils to distributors that resell them under their private label brands. These high-quality lubricants provide the company’s customers with a sustainable solution to their oil demands.
The used oil can also be processed into recycled fuel oil, or ‘RFO,’ which is then sold to customers, such as asphalt plants, industrial plants, pulp and paper companies or into vacuum gas oil ‘VGO’, which can be further re-refined into lubricant base oils or sold directly into the marine diesel fuel market. With 253 million gallons of used oil collected in 2024, the company was able to return approximately 249 million gallons of new re-refined oil, lubricants and byproducts back into the marketplace helping the company’s customers meet the growing demand for the use of sustainable products in their operations.
The SKSS operations also collect and either recycle or dispose of related automotive products, including antifreeze and oil filters. The company sells automotive and industrial products, including antifreeze recycled through the company’s collections, windshield washer fluid, degreasers, glass and floor cleaners, hand cleaners, absorbents, mats, and spill kits.
SKSS segment results are impacted by the company’s customers' demand for high-quality, environmentally responsible recycled oil products and their demand for the company’s related service and product offerings. Segment results are impacted by market pricing, overall demand and the mix of the company’s oil products sales. Segment results are also predicated on the demand for other SKSS product and service offerings, including collection services for used oil, used oil filters and other automotive fluids. These fluid collections are used as feedstock in the company’s oil re-refining to produce the company’s base and blended oil products and its recycled automotive related fluid products or are integrated into the Clean Harbors' recycling and disposal network.
Acquisitions
In 2024, the company acquired HEPACO. The operations of HEPACO expand the Environmental Services segment’s field services business. Also in 2024, the company acquired Noble Oil Services, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively ‘Noble’). The acquisition of Noble expands the SKSS segment’s oil collection operations in the southeastern region of the United States while also adding incremental production from the re-refinery owned and operated by the acquired company. Additionally, the company acquired three privately-owned businesses.
Intellectual Property
As of December 31, 2024, the company held a total of 45 U.S. and 16 foreign issued or granted patents (which will expire between 2025 and 2042), four U.S. and three foreign pending patent applications, 98 U.S. and 70 foreign trademark registrations and three U.S. pending trademark registrations and four foreign trademark registrations.
Government Regulations
The most significant federal environmental laws affecting the company is RCRA; the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, also known as the ‘Superfund Act’; the Clean Air Act; the Clean Water Act; and the Toxic Substances Control Act (‘TSCA’).
The company operates a network of collection, treatment and field services (remediation) facilities throughout North America whose activities are regulated under provisions of TSCA.
In the company’s transportation operations, the company is regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Federal Railroad Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, and the U.S. Coast Guard, as well as by the regulatory agencies of each state in which the company operates or through which the company’s vehicles pass.
Health and safety standards under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (‘OSHA’) are also applicable to all of the company’s operations.
Pursuant to the EPA's authorization of RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) equivalent state run programs, a number of the U.S. states have regulatory programs governing the operations and permitting of hazardous waste facilities. Accordingly, the hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal activities of a number of the company’s facilities are regulated by the relevant state agencies in addition to federal EPA (the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) regulation.
Competition
Veolia North America, Enviri Corporation, Republic Services, Waste Management, Stericycle, Inc., GFL Environmental, and the operations of Heritage-Crystal Clean, a portfolio company of J.F. Lehman & Company, are the principal national firms with which the company competes.
Competition within the company’s Environmental Services segment varies by locality and type of service rendered. Heritage-Crystal Clean in the United States, and CEDA, GFL Environmental Inc., and Secure Energy Services in Canada, are the principal national firms with which the company competes for this work.
For the company’s SKSS segment, competitors vary by locality and by type of services rendered, with competition coming from Heritage-Crystal Clean, along with many regional and local firms. With the company’s KLEEN+ base oil produced at its re-refineries, the company competes against base oil produced at traditional oil refineries, such as Motiva Enterprises LLC and Chevron Corporation.
History
Clean Harbors, Inc. was founded in 1980. The company was incorporated in Massachusetts in 1980.
