Dive Brief:

• Clean Harbors announced the completion of a $120 million incinerator expansion at its facility in El Dorado, AR. Company officials say this project is the most advanced commercial hazardous waste incinerator built in decades, as reported by KUAR.
• This will be the third incinerator at the facility and expands its capacity from 90,000 tons per year to 160,000 tons per year. The facility specializes in hazardous waste such as industrial and laboratory chemicals, manufacturing byproducts, medical waste, fertilizers and other solid and liquid materials.
• The company says this is the largest capital investment made to a facility during its 36-year history. An additional 120 jobs will be created bringing total employment at the El Dorado site to 375.

Dive Insight:

Completing this project is a big step for Clean Harbors and will set it up well for 2017. While its most recent quarterly revenues were down compared to 2015 that was mainly due to substantially higher amounts of emergency clean-up activity last year. The company ranked higher on the most recent Fortune 1000 list than most others in the waste management industry and has announced new executives to its leadership team over the past year.

The climate for constructing or expanding incineration facilities remains challenging in the U.S. Covanta and others in the field see specialized or hazardous waste as strong potentials for growth so it makes sense that Clean Harbors was able to expand in this area.

Covanta began accepting new shipments of medical waste from Stericycle at a facility in Oregon earlier this year and Stericycle has been looking for ways to increase its incineration capacity elsewhere. Companies such as ACT Environmental Services have also introduced new technologies for treating medical waste that could expand disposal options. In recognition of this growing sector the Medical Waste Management Association was formed earlier this year and plans to hold its first conference next spring.