BOISE, Idaho, Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- US Ecology, a premier provider of comprehensive environmental and emergency response services, provides solutions to industrial, commercial and government customers that help protect human health and the environment. Our turnkey, customized solutions, when combined with customers’ own internal initiatives, help them achieve sustainability and improve ESG performance.
“US Ecology remains committed to being the premier solutions provider helping customers realize their sustainability and ESG goals,” said Jeff Feeler, President and CEO. “Our innovative technologies, secure waste disposal facilities and sustainable solutions allowed us to safely manage over 4.6 billion pounds of hazardous waste for customers in 2020. That’s 4.6 billion pounds of waste that is no longer a threat to our ecosystems or our communities and future generations. We are proud to play such an important role for our customers and all stakeholders in protecting the environment each and every day.”
With 70 years of experience, our teams are dedicated to developing technology and innovative treatment and disposal, recycling, field, industrial and emergency solutions to better manage our customers’ environmental needs and provide them a variety of sustainable solutions. Our Technical Services group identifies environmentally focused solutions that achieve regulatory compliance, while offering customers alternative sustainable solutions via new waste reduction, recycling or reuse technologies. These compliant and safe technologies allow customers the opportunity to achieve ESG performance improvements while protecting the communities in which they work and live.
“US Ecology understands the pressures customers are under today to conduct business in a way that reduces their environmental impact and supports social and cultural objectives while achieving their business goals. That is why our dedicated sales and customer service teams work in partnership with customers to understand their environmental needs, appreciate their sustainability goals and ultimately, find innovative, customized solutions that work,” said Steve Welling, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing.
Learn more about specific services that allow US Ecology to partner with customers to create a better tomorrow:
Aerosol Recycling Technology: 562,000 cans recycled in 2020
US Ecology operates a patent-pending aerosol recycling technology that is the most sustainable solution in the U.S. market, and the only solution to recycle or reuse 100% of the aerosol can and its components.
Our process is a fully enclosed, zero-emission process and will save hundreds of tons of aerosol hazardous waste from entering landfills and polluting our environment each year. This allows the aerosols and packaged goods industry to better manage a long-standing environmental challenge while producing new, compatible end products that can recirculate into the market for a broad array of reuse.
Sustainable Technology Investments
We have exclusive waste classification technology that gives customers a safer and more compliant categorization system for hazardous and non-hazardous waste. This technology found in stores, and on our trucks, easily identifies thousands of discarded products that are exempt from RCRA hazardous waste regulation, allowing for recycling and reuse of these products through alternative technologies. Specific products can be automatically identified for sustainable solutions like ethanol recovery, electronic recycling, paint recycling or surfactant blending, etc., saving tons of waste from entering landfills each year.
Realtime Results for Environmental Reporting
US Ecology’s Customer Online Resource (COR) is the industry's leading online application that allows customers the ability to manage their industrial services and environmental waste needs through real-time, comprehensive dashboards. The COR platform is a difference maker in the waste industry and enables customers to more efficiently access data required by environmental platforms’ disclosure obligations. This ability to quickly pull in-depth levels of comprehensive data 24 hours a day allows customers to confidently prove they are operating sustainably, safely and compliantly which positively influences ESG performance.
Glycol Recycling: 2.7 million pounds recycled in 2020
US Ecology leverages our broad customer network to combine the links on a sustainable supply chain for glycols that help consumers achieve sustainability goals. In addition to these “downstream” benefits recognized through the distribution of recycled products, this program also protects our “upstream” natural resources by creating a socially responsible outlet, helping to prevent glycols from being introduced into local landscapes or surface waters. US Ecology currently de-waters and de-mineralizes collected raw materials to create a virgin-equivalent glycol, which can be used as a base fluid for blended products such as heat transfer fluid, windshield washer deicing fluid and diesel motor antifreeze.
Metals Recovery: 22 million pounds recycled in 2020
We provide a sustainable alternative to traditional stabilization and landfill disposal with metals recycling technologies that economically recover metals such as copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, and tin. This results in a significant benefit to the environment while providing financial relief and recycling credits to our customers. Our effective reclamation of heavy metals from a variety of waste streams saves thousands of tons of metal bearing wastes from entering landfills each year.
Thermal Recovery Organic Bearing Waste
Our state-of the-art Thermal Desorption Unit (TDU) provides sustainable waste solutions by recovering valuable organic material from wastes generated across multiple industry segments such as petroleum refining, automotive manufacturing, clean energy and aerospace. This process provides an alternative solution to incineration, stabilization and landfill. Oils and other organics are separated from wastes and recovered to be recycled as fuel in place of consuming virgin fossil fuels. Our thermal recovery process is also successful at removing organic contamination from metal bearing catalysts used in the refining industry. The catalysts, once processed, can either be returned to the generator or sent to recyclers to reclaim semi-precious metals such as cobalt, nickel and zinc. Our thermal process is used as a critical step to prepare certain materials like lithium batteries for further recycling and recovery.
Thermal Soil Remediation
US Ecology’s Moose Creek Facility (MCF) helps maintain Alaska’s breathtaking views, expansive wilderness and sensitive ecosystems by treating non-hazardous soils that have been impacted by industry and commerce thermally to standards five times cleaner than standards recommended by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. Our Thermal Remediation technology treats thousands of tons of impacted soil each year, keeping harmful contaminants from entering Alaska’s land and watersheds. Once certified clean, the soils are 95% compactable fill and can be used in a variety of situations including topsoil and road projects.
Container/Drum Reuse
US Ecology offers a companywide program that inspects, refurbishes, tests and recertifies shipping containers in compliance with EPA and DOT regulations that allow for reuse of these containers within our organization or resale back to customers for reuse. Reuse of a qualifying non-bulk container can save as much as 50% over the cost to manufacture a new drum, resulting in a substantially lower environmental footprint, cost structure and economic impact. US Ecology inspects thousands of drums each month to reduce customer procurement needs, and to lower the overall carbon footprint associated with hazardous waste disposal. This initial pilot investment was made in 2021 and we plan to roll it out across our network in the coming years.
Emergency Response Services: 10,000 Responses in 2020
Our emergency response service’s paramount objective is to minimize a customer’s impact on the environment, whether it be in response to catastrophic oil spills, destruction from wildfires and natural disasters, biohazardous contamination, hazardous product releases, chemical fires or events involving an array of volatile substances. Our nationwide network provides rapid, safe, and effective containment, removal, and disposal and/or treatment of contaminants and hazardous waste 24/7/365. We help our customers return to normal business operations in a timely manner and ensure their environmental impact is minimized.
Renewable Energy Sector
US Ecology provides safe and compliant waste disposal and response services to the renewable energy sector as a key partner supporting their efforts to protect the environment. Our team provides services for solar panel and EV battery manufacturers, wind farm operators, as well as large scale wind turbine refurbishment programs in the United States. Our Technical Services team continues to research innovative, alternative solutions for waste generated by the renewable energy sector. Our turnkey services help these industries remain environmentally friendly.
Hazardous Waste Secure Disposal with Limited Greenhouse Gas Emissions
US Ecology operates six specialty disposal facilities across North America that provide safe and secure containment and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste. The soil, debris and wastewater these facilities manage have limited to no recycling value. The highly engineered design, secure construction and regulatory compliance and monitoring systems in place at our facilities ensure the wastes disposed on-site are no longer a threat to the environment. Our secure disposal facilities manage inorganic materials and emit little to no methane or other gases that would be harmful to the environment.
Managed Services
In addition to utilizing sustainable technologies that isolate specific waste streams and individually manage them via sustainable methods that help customers achieve ESG performance improvements, we also offer wholistic, turnkey project management of all environmental needs through our Managed Services Group (MSG) to customers seeking a more customized program to help increase sustainability.
MSG has over 20 years of experience developing and supporting customized programs to help our customers reach their sustainability goals and improve ESG performance. Our Managed Services initiatives include:
- Waste recycling and reuse opportunities for expanded recycling programs and the improvement of existing programs.
- Landfill diversion and minimization - we move up-stream to reduce waste generation at its source.
- Waste elimination and reduction - we evaluate new technologies to process wastes into commodities.
Our dedicated Managed Services Project Managers work with each customer to drive process enhancements and identify pollution prevention alternatives. We promote policies designed to enhance the environment and encourage waste reduction and recycling. US Ecology is an industry leader in understanding the best available recycling and disposal technologies and we find that this commitment to sustainability aligns our program with our client's environmental goals and ESG objectives.
US Ecology’s ESG Initiatives
In addition to providing a comprehensive suite of innovative solutions to help our customers achieve sustainability and improve ESG performance, US Ecology remains committed to our mission of protecting human health and the environment by focusing on our ESG performance. We invest in technological and operational initiatives that allow us to be more sustainable while continuing to deliver unequaled service to our customers.
We participate in the EcoVadis and SASB (Sustainability Accounting Standards Board) sustainability reporting platforms, and recently published our 2020 ESG data supplement. Based upon our classification within SASB’s Sustainability Industry Classification System, we evaluated the Waste Management Sustainability Accounting Standard (IF-WM) and published our report setting out the topics addressed by that standard, the related SASB code and accounting metric and our related disclosures. US Ecology remains committed to ESG initiatives for 2021 and beyond.
Please visit https://www.usecology.com/page/ESG to learn more about our sustainability and ESG efforts.
ABOUT US ECOLOGY, INC.
US Ecology, Inc. is a leading provider of environmental services to commercial and government entities. The company addresses the complex waste management and response needs of its customers offering treatment, disposal and recycling of hazardous, non-hazardous and radioactive waste, leading emergency response and standby services, and a wide range of complementary field and industrial services. US Ecology’s focus on safety, environmental compliance, and best-in-class customer service enables us to effectively meet the needs of US Ecology’s customers and to build long lasting relationships. US Ecology has been protecting the environment since 1952. For more information, visit www.usecology.com.
