Our Sustainability Goals

Materials Management

At Republic Services, we recognize the opportunity we have to responsibly manage the diversity of materials in the waste stream. Not only to extract value from those materials in the form of commodities and energy, but to also reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with those materials. We are focused on two high impact areas to drive emissions reductions resulting from the materials we handle:

Commodities – recycling results in a significant reduction in greenhouse gases compared to growing or mining those same commodities for use as virgin raw materials. Republic’s goal is to increase the ability to recycle by adding capacity each year to our recycling infrastructure. Through experience, we’ve learned that communities can only add or increase recycling when the infrastructure exists. Our goal is to add an additional 150,000 tons per year or more of recycling capability by 2018 to enable growth of recycling. This results in a reduction of 480,000 tons/yr of CO2e1 for a total of 2.4M tons of CO2e reductions over the next 5 years. That’s in addition to the 15 million tons of CO2e that we are avoiding through the recycling investments we’ve already made as of year end 2014. We are on target to reach our goal by 2018.

Energy – materials like paper, food and yard waste generate biogas containing methane when they break down in landfills. Harvesting the biogas prevents the methane from escaping into the atmosphere. Using biogas for energy projects, called landfill gas-to-energy (LFGTE), displaces the use of fossil fuels for energy generation. By managing these materials and creating an alternative energy source, we can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the avoided use of fossil fuels. Thus, we have a goal to develop at least two LFGTE projects per year, resulting in roughly 20,000 tons per year of avoided CO22. This is the equivalent of not burning 100 railcars worth of coal each year. We exceeded our target in 2014.

Operations

The greatest contribution to emissions from Republic’s energy use in our own operations is our fleet. We have 16,000 recycling and waste collection vehicles that serve our customers across the country. Our collection fleet comprises roughly 70% of our scope 1, 2 and 31 operations emissions. Thus, our attention is focused on reducing the impact of our fleet.

Fleet – Republic has a number of initiatives in progress
to reduce the amount of fuel that we use, and therefore,
our greenhouse gas emissions from our fleet. To date,
we’ve converted 2,200 trucks to CNG from diesel, and we
are continuing to do this at a rate of roughly 300 per year. Our OneFleet program improves maintenance practices, 1500 and the automation of our fleet results in more efficient routing. Together, these and other initiatives will help us reach our goal of reducing our Scope 1 Fleet absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 3% by 2018.

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About Republic Services
Republic Services, Inc. (NYSE: RSG) is an industry leader in U.S. recycling and non-hazardous solid waste. Through its subsidiaries, Republic's collection companies, recycling centers, transfer stations and landfills focus on providing effective solutions to make proper waste disposal effortless for their commercial, industrial, municipal, residential and oilfield customers. We'll handle it from here.™, the brand's tagline, lets customers know they can count on Republic to provide a superior experience while fostering a sustainable Blue Planet™ for future generations to enjoy a cleaner, safer and healthier world. For more information, visit the Republic Services website at republicservices.com. "Like" Republic on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RepublicServices and follow on Twitter @RepublicService.