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Waste Management

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Submitted By Krummy
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Legal Advice
Michael Stephens
Strayer University
Professor Thomas Demko
Business Law/Leg 100
February 27, 2012

Waste Management, Inc., headquartered in Houston, is the “nation's largest garbage hauler and landfill operator” (abclocal.go.com). Wikipedia.org sites the company’s vast network to include “367 collection operations, 355 transfer stations, 273 active landfill disposal sites, 16 waste-to-energy plants, 134 recycling plants, 111 beneficial-use landfill gas projects and six independent power production plants.” Founded in 1894, Waste Management (WM) “offers environmental services to nearly 20 million residential, industrial, municipal and commercial customers in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico.” “Together with its competitor Republic Services, Inc., the two handle more than half of all garbage collection in the United States” (wikipedia.org).
In 2007, Waste Management announced its initiative to spend “hundreds of millions of dollars over the next dozen years to make its operations more environmentally friendly. The company plans to increase its energy production from waste, buy more fuel-efficient vehicles and more than double the amount of recyclable material it processes, among other initiatives” (abclocal.go.com). Waste Management’s CEO David Steiner explained to The Associated Press that “the "green" strategy will also boost Waste Management's bottom line. The company reported $13.4 billion in revenue in 2006” (abclocal.go.com). WM.com (Waste Management’s own website) proclaims that the company “uses waste to create enough energy to power more than 1 million homes every year. By 2020, we expect to double that output, creating enough energy to power more than 2 million homes”.
By the end of 2009, WM had “used technology to reduce the fuel burn of every truck in [their] fleet” and at the start of 2010, they had “800 natural gas-powered

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