Waste Connections Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
October 22, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Waste Connections reported Q3 adjusted EBITDA of $830.3 million and a 33.8% adjusted EBITDA margin, driven by 6.3% core solid waste pricing and about 80 bps of underlying solid waste margin expansion despite volumes down 2.7%.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management has ~$300 million of annualized revenue in deals closed or under definitive agreement YTD (including two large Florida private companies) and expects continued above‑average acquisition activity to drive growth.
  • Positive Sentiment: Board authorized an 11.1% increase to the regular quarterly dividend and the company has bought back ~2.4 million shares (~1% of outstanding), signaling continued capital returns alongside M&A.
  • Negative Sentiment: Recycled commodity and RIN values slid ~30–35% YoY, creating a roughly 70 bps Q3 margin drag, and while Chiquita Canyon remediation is progressing (leachate fell from ~400k gpd to ~220–240k gpd), remediation outlays remain elevated and add near‑term cash flow uncertainty.
  • Positive Sentiment: Employee metrics and productivity are improving (voluntary turnover down >55% from peak; safety incidents down >25%), and management expects investments in AI/data analytics (pricing retention, routing, maintenance) to further boost margins over 2026–27.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Waste Connections Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

There are 5 speakers on the call.

Speaker 2

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the conference operator. Thank you for joining this morning's Waste Connections conference call. The call will begin momentarily. Once again, we do thank you for joining. Please stay on the line and the call will begin momentarily.

Speaker 2

SA.

Speaker 2

Good morning everyone and welcome to the Waste Connections Inc. Q3 2025 earnings call. All participants will be in a listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please also note today's event is being recorded. At this time I'd like to turn the conference over to Ronald Mittelstaedt, President and CEO. Sir, please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Thank you, operator, and good morning. I would like to welcome everyone to this conference call to discuss our third quarter results and to provide some thoughts about the remainder of the year and the setup for 2026. I'm joined this morning by Mary Anne Whitney, our CFO, and several other members of our senior management. As noted in our release, superior execution drove better than expected financial results in the third quarter, bolstered by continued improvement in operating trends, another quarterly step down in employee turnover, and new record low safety incident rates. Together with strong pricing execution retention, this drove adjusted EBITDA margins of 33.8%, reflecting underlying solid waste margin expansion of approximately 80 basis points in the period. I'm extremely pleased by our team's efforts to overcome incremental commodity headwinds and ongoing uncertainty in the economy in Q3 to achieve the results above expectations.

Speaker 4

Assuming continuing trends and without further headwinds, we remain well positioned to deliver our full year 2025 outlook as provided in July. Before we get into much more detail, let me turn the call over to Mary Anne for our forward looking disclaimer and other housekeeping items.

Speaker 1

Thank you Ron and good morning. The discussion today during today's call includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Actual results could differ materially from those made in such forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ are discussed both in the cautionary statement included in our October 21 earnings release and in greater detail in Waste Connections filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the securities commissions or similar regulatory authorities in Canada. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements as there may be additional risks of which we are not presently aware or that we currently believe are immaterial, which could have an adverse impact on our business.

Speaker 1

We make no commitment to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may change after today's date. On the call we will discuss non-GAAP measures such as adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income attributable to Waste Connections on both a dollar basis and per diluted share, and adjusted free cash flow. Please refer to our earnings releases for a reconciliation of such non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. Management uses certain non-GAAP measures to evaluate and monitor the ongoing financial performance of our operations. Other companies may calculate these non-GAAP measures differently. I will now turn the call back.

Speaker 4

Okay, thank you Mary Anne. We are extremely pleased to deliver third quarter results above expectations, demonstrating the durability of solid waste regardless of the economic environment. Q3 revenue growth was led by 6.3% core solid waste price with reported volumes slightly better than expected, down 2.7%. We delivered margins of 33.8%, up 100 basis points year over year, excluding the impact of commodities and our decision to close Chiquita Canyon landfill as of January 1. Said another way, normalizing for these factors puts our Q3 margins at 34.7% without the benefit of any contribution from positive volumes. As we've said, we remain well positioned to enjoy the upside from any pickup in volumes from the broader economy given our asset position and market selection strategy.

Speaker 4

As anticipated, we continue to advance that strategy through acquisition activity, which has continued at an above average pace, resulting in approximately $300 million in annualized revenues either closed or under definitive agreement year to date, with more expected in Q4. By early 2026, we've had some fantastic M&A wins, including two of the largest private companies in Florida, one of which we closed during Q3 with the other signed and expected to close in Q4. Moreover, our operating performance, free cash flow and balance sheet continue to provide the capacity for outsized acquisition activity and expanded return of capital to shareholders. To that end, our Board of Directors authorized an 11.1% increase to our regular quarterly cash dividend, our 15th consecutive annual double digit increase since the initiation of our dividend in 2010.

Speaker 4

Additionally, as noted on our last call, we've been in the market buying back shares as we take an opportunistic approach to share repurchases and look to capitalize when we see compelling dislocations across the market or within our sector. To date, we bought back approximately 2.4 million shares, or almost 1% of shares outstanding pursuant to our normal course issuer bid, which we renewed in August, providing for annual repurchases of up to 5% of shares outstanding. Along with executing our growth strategy, we've also shown significant progress towards achievement of our long term aspirational sustainability related targets as highlighted in our recently released 2025 sustainability report. In fact, we've already achieved several of our initial targets, including emissions reductions, safety, performance in recycling, and being well ahead of our expectations.

Speaker 4

We continue to challenge ourselves for further progress as we demonstrate that sustainability is integral to our long-term value creation and part of our corporate culture, most notably with multi-year reductions of 19% in emissions. Our results demonstrate that outsized growth is compatible with the achievement of our long-term aspirational ESG targets. This improvement also applies to employee engagement, where we've seen ongoing reductions during 2025 in involuntary turnover and safety-related metrics. In Q3, voluntary turnover was down for the 12th consecutive quarter for a total reduction of over 55% from the peak in late 2022 and early 2023. Similarly, safety incident rates have shown continuous multi-year improvement, now down over 25% to new historic lows for the company. A cornerstone of our operating philosophy is that people are our strongest differentiator, so we're excited to see that the level of employee engagement has never been stronger.

Speaker 4

As we maintained would be the case two years ago, we're seeing the benefits of higher employee retention and engagement in our financial results as evidenced by our 80 basis points of underlying margin expansion in the quarter. With more to come given record safety levels and nearly three years of progress, what may be even more compelling is the opportunity ahead as we harness that engagement to leverage technology in new and unprecedented ways while adhering to the fundamentals that have driven our growth and success. Along with human capital as a differentiator, we're excited to recognize the benefits of using technology to accelerate and expand the reach of our leadership. To that end, we're making long-term investments in technology and infrastructure to maximize their impact and position the company for continued margin expansion.

Speaker 4

These investments target productivity and efficiency gains as we look to further digitize and automate operations, enhance forecasting through data analytics, and improve service delivery, all while enabling a greater focus on the customer experience. We are already seeing positive outcomes, including improved pricing retention as we expand the utilization of data analytics across multiple platforms. We look to build upon these efforts as we deploy additional applications and expand our efforts in 2026 and 2027. Now, before we look ahead, I'd like to pass the call to Mary Anne to review more in depth the financial highlights of the third quarter.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Ron. In the third quarter, revenue of $2.458 billion was above our outlook and up $120 million or 5.1% year over year. Acquisitions completed since the year-ago period contributed about $77 million net of divestitures. Core pricing of 6.3% in Q3 puts us on pace for full year core pricing of approximately 6.5%, which is above our initial expectations coming into 2023 and reflects stronger pricing retention in our competitive regions. Volumes were down 2.7%, similar to Q2, and reflected ongoing purposeful and margin accretive shedding of low margin contracts and some price volume trade off. Volumes also reflected continued sluggishness in the more cyclically exposed activities. The effects of slower roll-off activity and lower disposal volumes, primarily from construction-oriented, were similar to those described in previous periods. As such, we saw a more muted seasonal ramp than would be typical for Q3.

Speaker 1

Looking year over year in Q3 by line of business on a same store basis, roll-off pulls were down 1% and rates per pull up 2%, which is a modest improvement from Q2. Year over year, pulls in most regions were flattish, with our southern region still down mid single digits. Markets like Florida and Texas continued to be our weakest, albeit less negative on a year over year basis than in previous quarters. Landfill tons were up almost 3%, led by higher MSW tons up 2% and special waste tons up 10%, with some of that increase due to the timing of jobs that were otherwise expected in Q4. C&D tons, while still negative at down 4%, were better on a comparative basis than in recent quarters as the rate of decline may be moderating or again as a result of some timing differences.

Speaker 1

We've seen pockets of C&D activity in our markets in our central and southern regions as well as ongoing special waste activity in certain West Coast markets. Moving next to commodity-related activity, values for recycled commodities and renewable energy credits or RINs continued to slide during Q3, both ending the quarter down 30% to 35% year over year on a combined basis. Recycled commodities and landfill gas revenues were down 27% year over year on lower pricing, partially offset by contributions at new facilities. Our E&P waste revenues, on the other hand, were up 7% year over year driven by our production-oriented R360 Canada business, while our legacy U.S. business was down nominally year over year. Adjusted EBITDA for Q3 as reconciled in our earnings release was $830.3 million, up 5.4% year over year and slightly above our expectations at 33.8%.

Speaker 1

Our adjusted EBITDA margin was up 10 basis points year over year and better than expected. This was in spite of an extra 20 basis points drag from the decline in commodities during the quarter. As noted in the aggregate, lower year over year revenues from recycling and RINs resulted in a margin drag of about 70 basis points in the quarter. Underlying solid waste margins, on the other hand, were up 80 basis points, even better than in recent quarters. Not surprisingly, we once again saw the greatest margin improvement in those areas related to employee retention and lower openings. That includes a range of cost categories related to third-party services including labor and maintenance, parts and repairs. In contrast, we continue to overcome lagging reductions in risk management costs and look forward to unlocking savings for margin expansion in future periods.

Speaker 1

Net interest expense in the quarter was $79.4 million and our effective tax rate for the third quarter was 23.6%. Our leverage remained comfortably within our expected range at 2.75 times debt to EBITDA. Finally, year to date we have delivered adjusted free cash flow of $1.084 billion on capital expenditures up over $135 million year over year, providing visibility for full year adjusted free cash flow in line with our outlook of $1.3 billion. Assuming continuing trends without further headwinds, there is no change to our full year guidance which implies Q4 revenue of approximately $2.36 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin up about 90 basis points to about 33.3%. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Ron to provide some preliminary thoughts about 2026 before we head into Q and A.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Mary Anne. As we have described, we are pleased with our year-to-date results, which not only highlight the strength and resilience of our business, but provide momentum for next year. Although we do not provide our formal outlook for 2026 until February, we are able to provide a high-level framework assuming no change in the current economic environment. On that basis, we should be positioned for mid-single-digit revenue growth in 2026 from price-led organic growth in solid waste and approximately 1% revenue carryover from 2025 acquisition activity to date, partially offset by continued headwinds related to commodities. Looking at margins, we remain well positioned for above-average underlying solid waste margin expansion, with offsets expected from margin-dilutive impacts from acquisitions and commodities. These combined impacts suggest adjusted EBITDA margin expansion in what we would consider a normalized range and depending on the timing of capital expenditures and other outlays.

Speaker 4

The conversion of adjusted EBITDA to adjusted free cash flow should improve relative to 2025. These aforementioned amounts will be positively impacted by the pace and magnitude of ongoing acquisition activity in Q4 and will grow during 2026 as we complete additional M&A. To the extent that we see improvements in commodities and RINs values, those impacts would also be additive to these preliminary thoughts. We look forward to having better visibility on the tone of the economy and including any government shutdown or tariff-related implications when we provide our formal outlook in February. We're most grateful and extremely proud of the dedication of our over 25,000 employees and the local leadership teams responsible for the consistency of operational execution. We're excited to leverage their effectiveness and provide multi-year opportunities to accelerate growth through our investments in technology.

Speaker 4

We're also proud to welcome Jason Kraft, a long-tenured local, divisional, and regional Waste Connections leader, to the role of Chief Operating Officer during the quarter. Jason's strong operational background and business acumen make him an ideal addition to the senior leadership team. We will continue to focus on operational excellence and stay true to our culture while also welcoming new and innovative ways to drive value creation and, as we say, win from within. We appreciate your time today. I will now turn this call over to the operator to open up the lines for your questions.

Speaker 2

Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we'll begin that question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please do so by pressing STAR and then one on your touchtone telephones. If you are using a speakerphone, we do ask that you please pick up your handset before pressing the keys to ensure the best sound quality. To withdraw your questions, you may press STAR and two. Once again, that is STAR and then one to join the question queue. Our first question today comes from Tyler Brown from Raymond James. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning guys. Can you hear me?

Speaker 4

Yes, yes, good morning, Tyler. We can hear you.

Speaker 3

Hey, morning. Hey Mary Anne. Just real quick on EMP, I think it was pretty strong, maybe felt like something was helping there. Can you kind of talk about Q3 and then how we should think about run rating that business, maybe not only in Q4, but maybe even into next year?

Speaker 1

Sure. What I'd say is that as in Q2 we saw nice steady performance in our production-oriented piece of the business in spite of lower crude, and we talked about a little bit of weakness in our legacy R360 business. What was different about Q3, what was incremental, was that there was a sequential increase in that Canadian business primarily associated with a remediation job. If I were run rating it, I would back out that $10 million, which is what it accounted for.

Speaker 3

Okay, perfect. $10 million. Okay, got it. I appreciate, Ron, the early look on 2026. Big picture, is there really any incremental benefit from the new RNG investments in that EBITDA number, or is that going to be more of a 2027 number? Based on what we know today, where should that green capex come in for 2025, and what will remain in 2026 as you sit here today?

Speaker 4

Yeah, Tyler, so first off, there is no incremental RNG revenue or EBITDA of any amount materially in the balance of 2025 guidance or in the 2026 first look. Okay, nothing there because most of our projects are timed to come online at some point during the fourth quarter. There could be a de minimis amount, maybe a couple months in 2026. That benefit is really not till 2027 in revenue, EBITDA, and margin. You know, we originally thought we'd spend between $100 million and $150 million in CapEx on RNG in 2025. That number is now probably between $75 million and $125 million, so maybe stepping down about $25 million to $35 million. There could be $25 million to $50 million of green CapEx rollover into 2026.

Speaker 3

Okay, excellent, very helpful. I just want to make sure that I've got your commentary about 2026 margins. I think you said a more normalized year next year. That is assuming outsized expansion in solid waste offset based on what we know today by dilutive M&A and dilutive commodities. Is that right?

Speaker 4

That's exactly right. You have it exactly right. Right now we believe commodities, if they stayed where they are, about a 20 to 25 basis point dilutive impact on a year-to-year basis. M&A, you know, call that 10 to 15. You're somewhere between, you know, 30 and 40 that you're overcoming, which puts you in that 20 to 40 normalized, which tells you what the underlying is doing.

Speaker 4

Yeah, perfect.

Speaker 3

Okay, my last one, just big picture question and you touched on it, Ron. There's obviously a ton going on in the world of technology and it sounds like you guys and quite frankly the industry at large probably stand to benefit from maybe some of the productivity that AI might bring. Can you just talk a little bit about your strategy, where you are in the journey, what kind of tools you're talking about, and is that something that we should see a gift that gives over the next, call it half decade, or how should we just think about that broadly? Appreciate it.

Speaker 4

Yeah, sure. Obviously, we are mostly talking about two things. We're mostly talking about data aggregation amongst historically disparate systems and apps, which are now being aggregated and can speak to each other and provide data analytics that we really haven't had to this degree. The utilization and overlay in multiple areas of AI to analyze that data help us in areas of pricing, customer engagement, route optimization, maintenance, projectability, and a variety of other things we laid out in late 2024, sort of a three-year, call it total digitization of the organization by the end of 2027. We are now, call that one third through that. We focused heavily on pricing and budgeting, forecasting, and planning through the use of AI and data aggregation.

Speaker 4

In 2025 for 2026, we will be doing the same on sort of route optimization as we've mentioned, working to sort of what I call ways for garbage, if you will, from a routing, a real-time routing standpoint rather than a static routing, as well as a dramatically enhanced mobile application and a complete revamp of our maintenance software and its integration to our operating system. There are additional plans for 2027. I think it's too early to know exactly what that does margin wise. Obviously, they are all a margin lift and continuing to help us with outsized margin expansion. I can tell you the first two to three things that we have done in late 2024 and 2025, there's been a very, very rapid payback on those investments and were surprised at the magnitude of the impacts, favorably surprised.

Speaker 4

I would tell you that looking out, as you said, maybe over a half decade, a four to five year period, we should continue to see those, and I'd say those impacts are more in the two to three year period we should see most of the benefit from.

Speaker 3

Interesting. Okay, thank you.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Noah Kaye from Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 3

Good morning.

Speaker 3

Thanks for taking them. I'll pick up on Tyler's last question around really the runway for accelerating or improving pricing retention from some of these changes in tools. What are you specifically thinking about in price for 2026 based off of the restricted and where you expect to be on open, and how much does this effort contribute to that?

Speaker 1

I’d actually start in 2025 because we already said that we’ve actually been using this tool and been applying it this year, deploying it this year. As you’ll recall, we had initially guided to pricing of around 6% and we’ve ended up giving you an updated guidance for 6.5%. That improved pricing retention we would attribute, in part, to the tool that we’ve been deploying. We’d also acknowledge that those improving metrics on the operating stats, like having our seats full and retention better, lower turnover, that also contributes to pricing retention. I’d say that gives you a flavor for the kind of benefit we’re seeing. A portion of it we would attribute to that tool.

Speaker 1

When we think longer term, we think about really the lifecycle of the customer and being able to hold on to customers by putting in smart price increases and minimizing the amount of customer loss and of course rollbacks. We think of it as taking some pressure off, using the pricing lever to drive that price cost spread and being incremental as we’ve demonstrated this year, for the possibility that there’s upside when we go into a year. To your specific question about how we’re thinking about next year, as you know, Noah, we think in terms of the two pieces, there’s the CPI linked markets and that’s a lagging CPI, CPI adjustment which over the past year those increases have been smaller than in the prior year. You’d expect less price in those CPI linked markets.

Speaker 1

The real question becomes what are cost pressures doing and how much price do we need in our unrestricted markets and then how effective are those price increases? I think all of that could sort of inform you directionally that the expectation is needing less price increase in 2026 than we did in 2025. Of course, the particulars, the specifics of that we’ll give when we give our guidance in February.

Speaker 4

I would just add that the expectation of still 150 to 200 basis point price cost spread is directionally how you should think of that. Our confidence level of achieving that I think has improved with the utilization of the AI tool that we've been working on for the past year plus. If we have a lower gross price and a higher net price with lower customer churn, we believe that can ultimately pull 50 to 100 basis points out of that reported volume number, meaning improving it because right now we're getting a trade off of probably up to a point for up to about 100 to 150 basis point more. We're pushing price so as we can pull that down and offset that churn that layers for us in the organic growth number as well.

Speaker 4

Very interesting. Thanks, Ron. Thanks, Mary Anne. You mentioned, I guess, the $50 million potential year over year benefit from lower green CapEx to free cash flow in 2026. What are some of the other puts and takes that we should be thinking about in our models for free cash flow conversion?

Speaker 1

Of course, Noah, we need to get through this year. We know the timing of CapEx. We've talked about taking advantage of bonus depreciation by potentially adding CapEx as we exit 2025 for fleet and equipment. You should expect us to be looking at that. That'll inform our thinking about 2026. As we said, the green CapEx will inform it, and ultimately what we guide to for EBITDA. All of those things will together inform our thinking about what the moving pieces are for 2026.

Speaker 2

Okay, I'll leave it there.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Kanar Gupta from Scotiabank. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Good morning and thanks for taking my questions. I just want to kind of follow on the last question about free cash flow. I think one of the other moving parts, I think the last couple of years at least, has been the Chiquita Canyon related outlays. Can you update us on where the Chiquita Canyon situation today is in terms of your remediation obligations, and how do you expect those outlays to trend in the next year or so? Also, maybe update on where the litigation currently sits there?

Speaker 4

Sure, I'll take a crack at this for you. We would tell you that overall, the mitigation and treatment of the reaction, or what we call the ETLF, is actually going about as we expected or maybe in ways even a little better. We continue to make progress on the removal of the leachate from the landfill that is being generated by the reaction, and that amount continues to drop quarter to quarter. We peaked at handling over 400,000 gallons a day, and we are now handling about 220,000 to 240,000 gallons a day in real time. At that 220,000 to 240,000 gallons a day, we are reducing the level of leachate within the landfill itself, which tells us that we are on the backside of the reaction curve because we're now effectively outrunning the reaction generation, whereas a year ago the reaction generation was outrunning us.

Speaker 4

Those are some very good signs. We have completely capped, with about 42 acres of synthetic liner, the reaction area. We have voluntarily agreed to cap an additional 50 acres over the next three years, preventatively and at the request of agencies, and we agree with that. We are complete drilling of all of the extraction wells and implementing all of the submersible pumps to remove the liquid. We have dropped by over 95% the registered odor complaints that are monitored through local agencies and the State of California Air Board. I would tell you that the reaction handling is going as expected or even better on that front. At this point, the outlays are running somewhat ahead of our expectations because we've taken additional steps to decrease the impacted area and accelerated some of those steps on our leachate treatment activities.

Speaker 4

We continue to believe and expect these efforts and that others that we're pursuing will and are resulting in decreasing outlays, given the progress that we've made. That's really the reaction front. Then you have the whole separately regulatory compliance and litigation that comes along with this type of an event. Of course, we're not going to comment on litigation because we are in a public forum, but I just tell you that that's probably expected, as you would expect in something like this. That's really the update.

Speaker 4

On where we're at, that's helpful, Ron. Just in terms of guideposts around the outlays for the Chiquita Canyon this year versus what you can expect maybe next year.

Speaker 4

Yeah, you know, we're not yet prepared to outline that. We will obviously do so in February when we give our full guidance. What I can tell you is that, as we said, we're somewhat ahead at this point right now, this year. We don't necessarily view that negatively. We have no reason to expect, as we sit here today, that the total outlay that we have outlined when we originally took an impairment and a charge when we closed the site for post closure has any material change to the totals.

Speaker 4

Okay, that's really helpful, thanks. Just to wrap up quick on the volume side of things, I think heading into the third quarter, the expectation was volumes to be a little bit worse than what you guys had seen in the first half. I'm just trying to understand if you can pass out some of the key underlying drivers in the volumes here with respect to macro. The Chiquita Canyon obviously overlaps because you shut down the landfill in Q4 last year. Also, is there anything else in the volume that you can call out for Q3 and expectations?

Speaker 1

Q4, sure. To your point, coming into Q3 we'd seen some incremental weakness at the end of Q2 and our expectation was that perhaps there was really no seasonal ramp. We did see a bit of a seasonal ramp, but we would describe it as muted. I think it was up about 1.5% sequentially, which is less than half of what you would typically expect to see. Some muted improvements. As I mentioned in the prepared remarks, special waste was up about 10%. I'd always hesitate to generalize from something that's event driven and pretty lumpy since last year. Special waste was down 10% in the quarter, but it was encouraging to see less negative trends. Again, as I mentioned in the remarks in C and D, a little better than it had been in prior quarters.

Speaker 1

I wouldn't generalize from this because also, as I'd mentioned, some of it is just timing and we had expectations about what the back half of the year could look like. If some of it occurs in Q2, that means you shouldn't assume it happens again in Q4 given the event driven nature of the business, but encouraging to see that things aren't incrementally worse. Arguably, this is our eighth quarter or even more of just kind of flattish activity levels and you're not seeing the creation of new volumes.

Speaker 4

Understood.

Speaker 4

Thanks so much for the color.

Speaker 4

I appreciate it.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Chris Murray from ATB Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Yeah, thanks folks. Good morning. Maybe just looking, maybe just, you know, thinking about volumes as we go into next year and just, you know, if you think about that we're going to be rolling off Chiquita Canyon, which has been, you know, a pretty big headwind. If I think about the kind of the revenue guide kind of mid single digits with kind of, call it, 3% type inflation numbers. Can you just really give us an idea how you're thinking about getting to that kind of mid single digit number and does that include any sort of expectation for any volume growth kind of in MSW year over year?

Speaker 1

Sure, Chris. Of course we're not giving guidance and these were broad strokes, but you know, at a very high level a way to think about it, since as you know, we think in terms of price-led organic growth and as I mentioned earlier, we think in terms of how much price we need and whether or not we're seeing incremental headwinds from inflation or we're seeing any easing. Given the fact that, as we've talked about, the underlying margin expansion we've enjoyed because of the self-help measures and the fact that trends aren't getting worse, based on what we're seeing right now, one could envision that the pieces would have price that's not as positive as it was in the current environment.

Speaker 1

There might be volumes that are not as negative, and the net impact of those two would get you to be approaching the kind of numbers we're talking about. You layer on the M&A with some offsets. I'd say that's a way to think about the building blocks. Of course we'll have better information and insights in February when we actually give our guidance.

Speaker 4

Chris, I would tell you that, look, we have said that our costs this year have been running. Of course, they were higher at the beginning of the year, coming down throughout the year. You know, we point to labor because that's the largest cost item. As we exit the year, we're approaching going below 4% in labor. It was 4.1% in Q3, and our other costs are running just below that. We believe that next year that labor number runs closer to the mid 3s, maybe 3.5%. Again, we've talked about maintaining the type of spread we've had this year in price. Assuming that is what continues in the cost, I think you can get yourself pretty close.

Speaker 4

Yeah, no, that's helpful, thank you. Maybe taking the giant kind of step into 2027, assuming that you get the normal kind of inflection. At least the thinking has been as we've been bringing in these RNG investments. Thank you for the clarification, it's probably going to be a Q4 2026 thing. As we get into 2027, I guess the expectation was always there'd be about $1 of EBITDA for every $1 you sort of put into the program. If you have any updates and any thoughts around how we should maybe frame that as we think about those out years, that would be helpful.

Speaker 1

Chris, we've talked over the past couple of years about the fact that that dollar of investment had grown and the fact that we'd seen the cost creep and the delays on these projects, and that has continued. It's contributed to the expectations that those don't come online until late 2026 or early 2027. The other major factor driving that equation is what RIN values are. Of course, that one for one was in an environment of, you know, $2.50 to $3 RINs, and you know where if we're sitting at $2.25 and have been below that, that certainly alters our expectations. You could see the 1 to 1 moving closer to 2 to 1 depending on what those ultimate values are.

Speaker 1

Okay, I'll leave it there. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Kevin Chang from CIBC. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Thanks. Thanks and good morning everybody. First of all, congratulations on the progress you're making on some of these safety metrics. As you think about 2026, I'm wondering if you start seeing the benefits of less of a headwind from the risk management inflation you're seeing in the 2025 results. I did notice Canada actually had, at least you called out in Q3, risk management was actually a tailwind to your margin. Just wondering what's happening in Canada from a risk management cost perspective versus what you're seeing in the U.S., I think.

Speaker 1

That was specifically related to a comeback on workers comp. Episodically we get a credit, and that can cause some lumpiness quarter to quarter. All of our regions are seeing improvement in safety. To your question about when we see the benefit of risk management costs, again, given the lagging nature and the fact that it's statistically driven or actuarially driven and claim development periods impact or influence how long it takes to see, we'd always be cautious about putting too fine a point on it. Even in our overall program costs, I'm optimistic that there's some benefits in 2026 versus 2025.

Speaker 1

I think the key thing to take away, Kevin, is that we had talked about 100 basis points of margin expansion, and we're driving the kind of results you've seen in spite of the fact that it's not just that we haven't gotten the risk benefit, but it continues to be a headwind of 20 to 30 basis points in the quarter. It gives you an idea of what unlocking it could do as we look ahead.

Speaker 1

That's helpful. Maybe just on your Canada R360 opportunities. If I recall, you had some idled assets when you made the acquisition. I guess from Secure, just given where energy prices are, how do you view that optionality? Is that still something that you'd look to invest in to bring some of these facilities online, or do you need a higher energy price to make that work?

Speaker 4

Yeah, good recollection on that, Kevin. In fact, there were six idle assets when we closed the transaction two and a quarter years ago or two and a half years ago. Now we have in the course of 2025 invested in and opened two of those six. That is actually something that helped us in Q3 at one of those facilities. These are smaller facilities and smaller contributions, but they certainly were positive to volumes and our performance in Q3 and will be in Q4. We're going to assess each of the remaining four. We reassess all the time. It isn't as much in Canada because it's a production-based business. It isn't as much the price of crude, although that is influential, no question. It's where there is new drilling activity and its proximity to facilities that you might have shuttered.

Speaker 4

As activity moves amongst formations from time to time and it moves much slower in Canada because they have much longer life wells, that will really affect when we open those additional facilities.

Speaker 4

That's super helpful. Maybe I can just fit one last one in here. Just any update on the New York commercial zones? It looks like they're going to open up, I guess the two Bronx regions, which I think you have, you know, you have, I guess, the permit in those markets as well. Just how's that going and your experience in Queens, I guess, as that test run has come to an end here.

Speaker 4

Yeah, you are right. In fact, they have opened two additional zones and we have permits in both. Kevin, to answer your question, they opened those October 1st. We're two and a half weeks into it. It's going fairly well and again I would say about as expected. We didn't mention this in our commentary, but in the fourth quarter we will be closing on the largest remaining transfer station in the Queens market that we have actually had under definitive agreement since back in April and May. There's a complex regulatory process to get through in New York and we have gotten through that process and gotten approval to close on that transfer station. That really gives us one more leg in this jigsaw puzzle of how the franchise business comes together in New York City. We are looking forward.

Speaker 4

We will have that under ownership here in the fourth quarter. We're making good progress. It's a scramble when they open these zones, but we are very, very well positioned for that with the magnitude and size of our sales force and our operating footprint there. I'd say that continues to play out about as expected and we look forward to them rolling out the remaining zones over 2026 and 2027.

Speaker 4

Perfect. I appreciate you taking my questions. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from James Schumm from TD Cowen. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Hey, good morning. Nice quarter. All my questions have been answered. I have just two quick ones for you though. Are you seeing any issues obtaining new trucks, and do you think there will be any tariff impact next year? I know there was pretty much no impact this year.

Speaker 4

Yeah, Jim, I mean, first off, I would tell you that we are really not seeing, and it's a good question because up until I would tell you probably about mid this year, there was still some supply chain delay, but that has really eased. In fact, we are in the market currently buying additional fleet that we're pulling into 2025 because of availability of it and our desire to not only obtain it but to take advantage of bonus depreciation with the change in law. No, we're really not. I wouldn't want to use that as a reason we couldn't deliver on getting all of our vehicles. As far as tariffs, we are hearing from manufacturers that there's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of $3,000 up to about a $7,500 per truck impact because it affects different components of both the chassis and the bodies separately.

Speaker 4

I would tell you that that is relatively de minimis in the total scheme of things, but there is some very small impact at this point in time in 2026 going forward from the manufacturers.

Speaker 4

Okay, great, thanks. You guys talked quite a bit about volume and just maybe one more on that from a volume standpoint next year. Are there any major contracts that expire that you're likely to shed for next year? I know that there's always going to be some, but I mean like large sort of needle movers, whether it be from Progressive or any other contracts.

Speaker 1

Right. You know, understanding that there's always ins and outs. No, there's no significant chunky contract. In fact, in Q4, the chunkier one that's been impacting this year about 20 basis points actually expires or anniversaries, and it eases that shedding a little bit.

Speaker 1

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Toby Sommer from Truist. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Thanks. With commodity prices in rinse, recycling kind of being a headwind here for a period of time, does this influence and affect at all the way you think about the mix and exposure that you want to have within the portfolio and income statement in these buckets, and you know, how much higher or lower do you think your exposure might be in three or five years, Toby?

Speaker 1

We think in terms of providing the service to our customers, and so it's really a function of the mix of markets. You can appreciate on the West Coast where we've always had a high amount of diversion and therefore recycling, and that's a great model for that business. Off of the West Coast in places where we've always taken kind of a slow-moving approach to get critical mass and then build out our resources, own recycling facilities. Again, it's all based on meeting the customer's needs. We think about de-risking it to the extent we can. That's why you've seen us build our own recycling facilities in certain markets, and it's really coincided with the incremental technology in these facilities. That's made it a better business, and partnering with a nationwide broker to get better pricing through volumes.

Speaker 1

We've approached it as how do we mitigate the overall impact, make it a better underlying business, and then communicate to you all what the sensitivity is with movement in commodity values. We've always maintained, particularly given the fact that the recycled commodities running through our facilities come off of our own trucks, it really has to start with pricing it appropriately at the street. That's what we focus on.

Speaker 4

The last thing I'd say, Toby, is with regard to that, if you think about our, you know, going to use this word, growth algorithm, where we have predominantly price-led organic growth, obviously if that's the case, your percentage of commodities will naturally drop over time mathematically. Unless your M&A is materially outpacing in a year your price-led organic growth, and it has been running about the same or maybe a little under. I think over time it is much more likely that the percentage of things that are linked to a commodity that has some market volatility continues to drop as a percentage of revenue in generalities.

Speaker 4

Thank you. I wanted to ask a question about the great labor retention and cascading positive financial impacts on the income statement. How much of a margin impact, sort of delta, is there between the current trend, which is phenomenal, and what you might consider to be normal? Because should the labor market ever kind of change here and start to improve, there may be a little bit of give back for the industry and the company.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I would characterize it in this way. We have originally, when we went down this path, we said, hey, there's about 100 basis points of margin expansion that can be unlocked over a two to three year period as we achieve our turnover reduction goals. We said that doesn't show up in just one line item. It sort of shows up in seven or eight at 10 to 15 basis points per line item. That has happened. We are about two-thirds through, I call it 65 to 70 basis points of that unlock has been achieved. Now, here is the thing. We've actually achieved 130 basis points because we've overcome the margin headwinds of things that have affected against us, such as drops of commodities, as we've talked about, and increases in risk or from prior period severity.

Speaker 4

We've still got another third to go to get that 100, but that would actually put it at closer to about 160 to 170 is what we would have achieved through that. We believe you'll see the vast majority of that finish out over the course of 2026, and then if there is, to use your word, additional give back because there was some labor softening, you know, that would be determined. I will tell you that, look, you're always in the market to hire the best quality people. Even in a time of labor softening, best quality people in this economy have opportunities. I wouldn't think of not flexing downward. I would just think of it as being more stabilized.

Speaker 4

Thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Sabahat Khan from RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Great, thanks and good morning. Just a quick clarification on the margin and maybe a bit more of a detailed one. If we caught it right, I think you're saying about 50 to 80 basis points of underlying margin improvement offsetting about 30 to 40 basis points of headwinds. One, did I catch that correct? Secondly, is this just more kind of price cost spread and benefits of the employee sort of safety and all the retention related benefits, or are there other benefits that you expect? Maybe even if you think about two, three years, kind of where are some of the margin levers that we should look at? Thanks.

Speaker 1

Just to make sure we're all saying the same thing, we think of normalized margin expansion in the 20 to 40 basis point range. However you net to that number is the right way to think about it. You're being driven by that underlying solid waste margin expansion. You've seen us deliver underlying solid waste margin expansion for the past several quarters. Acknowledging that there are headwinds from commodities, which we said is, call it, 20ish, 25 basis points, and that acquisitions are dilutive and would be expected to continue to be to the extent anyone's layering more deals. Of course, we wouldn't encourage that, but just need to be mindful of those dynamics. I think we're all saying the same thing, but that would just be the clarification there.

Speaker 1

Again, in terms of what's driving the underlying margin expansion, we go into any year thinking of that price, cost spread and the opportunity to do better than that because of these self help measures, whether it's on pricing retention or employee retention and the cost benefits associated with that, including those lagging benefits from risk. Any of the granularity on the drivers, we'll certainly look forward to talking about in February when we give our guidance. We appreciate the opportunity to communicate at a very high level, broad strokes, how we're thinking about next year.

Speaker 1

Okay, great. Within that 7% growth number in the E&P, I think you mentioned there's a small facility that added as well. Is there any way to quantify what the sort of an annual or run rate benefit from a facility like that might be?

Speaker 4

Oh, the annual contribution from a facility like that is probably in the $3 million revenue range, and you know, $1.5 million to $2 million EBITDA range.

Speaker 4

Great. Lastly, I think there's a comment within this quarter the result is an amount related to a landfill. Presumably it's something different than the Chiquita Canyon landfill. Should we assume that this was just sort of like a one off? Is there any sort of bookends you'd want to put on some amount like that? Or should we just see this as a one off remediation type cost that was incurred in the quarter? Thank you.

Speaker 1

Yes, thanks. Nothing to do with Chiquita Canyon. It's a one off. As said, it's just a timing difference in commissioning a disposal well and some incremental costs in the meantime.

Speaker 1

Great, thanks very much for that.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from William Griffin from Barclays. Please go ahead with your question. Great, thank you.

Speaker 2

Good morning. Just one quick one for me here on capital allocation. You obviously ramped up share repurchases here in the third quarter. Just wondering how we should think about maybe the split between spending on acquisitions and buybacks as we look into 2026, maybe in the context of the M&A pipeline that you see in front of you right now.

Speaker 1

You should always think in terms of strategically consistent, appropriately priced M&A as always going to be our highest and best use. We look forward to continuing to grow the business the same way we've historically grown it, concentrating on the types of markets that have really driven our success. Still see a lot of runway. We've talked about the $4.5 to $5 billion in private company revenue that fits that model, and that really, of course, sellers drive the timing of deals, but have talked about the pipeline continuing to be robust. Ron talked about the successes we've had this year and the things we're closing in Q4 and looking ahead to next year, more to do. With that as the backdrop, the observation is even with a dividend that continues to grow at double-digit % annually since its inception, we have tremendous flexibility to also do share repurchases.

Speaker 1

You saw that in this recent period when, as we would characterize it, there was an opportunistic environment, or said another way, a dislocation that made it compelling from our perspective. That is the way to think about it. The fact that our leverage is 2.75 tells you we have tremendous flexibility to continue really doing all of the above. M&A, as I described, will be the first order of business.

Speaker 1

Got it. I appreciate the color. Thank you.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Tammy Zakaria from JPMorgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 1

Hi, good morning. Thank you so much and thanks for all the color. I'll add one quick question here. Any thoughts on how much of a volume headwind we could see next year from some of the contract shedding you're doing willfully, and if you could remind us how much of a drag it's expected to be this year, that would be helpful. Sure. Tammy, as we've said, when we look at the 2.7% in negative volumes, about 70 basis points of that has been this intentional shedding I mentioned earlier. We know about a third of that. It'll step down even in Q4 because of one contract we anniversary, and then going forward it'll really be a function of how much that continues to decline. It would be a function of any incremental shedding from acquisitions that we're currently doing or have done in the last year.

Speaker 1

Given the fact that we've still been busy, there's certainly potential for pieces there. I wouldn't expect it to get greater than what we've recently seen. I would expect those losses overall to be smaller than they have been in recent periods. I appreciate the time. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Michael Doumet from National Bank. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 4

Hey, good morning, Ron. Good morning, Mary Anne. Just wanted to ask a question on the regional results. It looks like Canada and the southern U.S. are seeing some pretty solid margin expansion while the other regions are flat to down year to date. I mean, is that reflective of where the recycling business is a little bit larger? Just wondering what is driving the differences in the margins in the regions.

Speaker 1

Typically, the biggest drivers would be yes, it would include recycling. To your point, our Western region and our Eastern region both have large recycling impacts. It also reflects acquisition activity because acquisitions are typically dilutive, and you would certainly see that in any of those regions where we've closed deals.

Speaker 4

The other thing I would say, Michael, is it also reflects, when you ask the difference between regional margins, it also reflects the general tip fee, landfill tip fee, that is built into the regional differences. Where you are in the Northeast and you're talking $80 to $120 tip fees, or the West where you're talking $60 to $120 tip fees, you're going to have suppressed EBITDA margins relative to the central part of the country and the South and Southeast where you're experiencing $20 to $40 landfill tip fees. Some is just a structural difference. Gotcha. Thank you.

Speaker 4

I guess if I remember correctly on the Q1 conference call, I remember you indicating that there were a few chunkier deals in the pipeline and it sounds like you've closed a few of them, but I was wondering if there were more ahead and how they were progressing and just generally on how you view the M&A environment for 2026.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 4

You are correct, Mike. We have closed some of those deals. We closed a very nice sized large company in South Florida in Q3. We have signed and will close in the next few another nice company in Central Florida. Some of those were ones we were referring to. We were also referring to this large transfer station in New York that we have under definitive agreement since May. As I mentioned earlier in a question asked, we will be closing that in this quarter as well. There always are deals of various sizes that are under constant discussion and negotiation. I would characterize the M&A environment as continuing to be very strong, very robust. We've already done sort of about two times a, quote, normalized year through three quarters and will continue at a strong pace in Q4.

Speaker 4

This is going to end up being more than double an average year and we're not really seeing any material change to that in any way as we head into 2026. I think if and when, and hopefully soon, the economy turns as interest rates continue to pull down throughout 2026 and private owners get a little more lift in their sales, that helps accelerate M&A activity. The catalysts that drive things are not going. They're going the right direction, not the wrong direction.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Shlomo Rosenbaum from Stifel. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Hi. Thank you very much, Ron. I just wanted to start asking you if you could flesh out a little bit more your discussion on pricing, you know, that you've gotten from technology. It sounds like you've been kind of favorably surprised in where you can both price and kind of help you price, I guess, in a very pinpoint way, so you're not impacting churn. Where do you think you are in terms of kind of rolling those learnings out across the organization, and in your efforts to kind of explore and analyze it, are you finding any additional adjacencies with that technology and analytics that are ongoing where you're consistently finding some new areas where you feel like you can press additional buttons?

Speaker 4

Yeah. First off, to answer your question, I think we're only in the second inning of a nine inning game as far as deployment. Very, very early in doing so. We have deployed this to about a seventh of our P&Ls so far, and that will grow to about, call it, half to 75% throughout 2026. I think you'll continue to see improvement in 2026 and into 2027 before you really start to see all of the impact. The ultimate objective, I think, and I don't think we're any different than any of the other large public companies, is how do you achieve your price increase objectives with the least customer churn by type of customer by geography.

Speaker 4

Instead of being, I'm going to call it, more uniform with if everybody's getting a 7% increase in a certain market, does somebody get 1.9% and somebody get 10% based on individual customer specifics of sort of an algorithmic stack of what we believe causes customer price acceptance or rejection or negotiation. Ultimately, this takes pressure off volume, trade off between price and volume, and you're going to begin seeing that in 2026 and continue to see it as we go forward. I think it allows us to achieve, with less customer rollback and defection, our price increase objectives. I think it's a little too early to say what else that means, but if it accomplishes that objective alone, we'd be extremely satisfied. The early indication from one-seventh of the company's locations is very positive. It's a 30% to 40% reduction in churn on similar price increases. That's pretty significant.

Speaker 4

Thank you. Mary Anne, can you talk a little bit about the puts and takes in the implied margin expansion of 90 basis points year over year for next quarter? Maybe just give us a little more breakdown on how that should shake out, at least in how you're thinking about it.

Speaker 1

Sure. The key moving pieces there that change between Q3 and Q4 is that 70 basis point headwind that we talked about from recycled commodities and RINs declines to about 30 basis points. That, of course, is the biggest driver of the change period over period.

Speaker 1

Okay. Do you have like a rollover into 2026 for the acquisitions that have been completed to date?

Speaker 1

Yeah, we said it was approaching 1%. That was kind of rounded. I think it's somewhere between 80 and 90 basis points, something like that.

Speaker 1

Okay.

Speaker 2

All right.

Speaker 2

Thank you very much.

Speaker 1

Sure.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Tony Kaplan from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 4

Hi, this is Yehuda Silverman on for Tony.

Speaker 1

Thank you for taking the time. Just got a quick question on commodities in the quarter. Some of the factors, the headwinds that were factored into the guide, were the.

Speaker 4

Results in the quarter worse or better than expected? Looking ahead, what is something that can mark recovery or stabilization of the commodity prices?

Speaker 1

Is it more macro or economic activity?

Speaker 4

The only notable driver, or are there?

Speaker 1

Other drivers for potential recovery? Sure. The incremental headwinds from commodities that we talked about in the quarter were about 20 basis points. The continued slide we saw during the quarter that we talked about overcoming with our underlying margin expansion, and I would say generally speaking, the best indicator would be the macro environment, the overall demand and visibility on that demand. The good news is that there's been so much conversion in the U.S. of mills to taking recycled feedstock that demand has been steadier and there's far less influence internationally. That's why I would argue that it could be a factor in the greater stability overall in those commodity prices, particularly OCC. Got it.

Speaker 4

Just one more quick one on a government shutdown. If that's prolonged, is there?

Speaker 1

Any potential impact on customer decision making or contracts or nothing really important. It's not so much government contracts. It would just be the overall activity and the lack of visibility there. To the extent that's influenced by a government shutdown, we certainly might pick up at parks or things, but it's not a needle mover.

Speaker 4

Got it.

Speaker 1

Thank you. Sure.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Trevor Romeo from William Blair. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Just maybe a couple of quick landfill related questions. One just on Arrowhead, I think maybe first, I guess any update on tons going to the facility, whether those are still ramping, and then, you know, we have a big merger in the rail space, I guess pending, that could include some of the lines in that part of the country. Just wondering if you could maybe see any changes or impact to your service there if that merger is approved.

Speaker 4

Yeah, sure. I'm happy to give you an update. Arrowhead has continued to progress. We are now hitting about 7,500 tons a day in Q3 at Arrowhead. Recalling that when we acquired the site in August of 2023, two years ago this quarter, it was about 2,500 to 2,700 tons a day. We made substantial progress there. I will also tell you that we have laid the foundation for incremental continued improvement in 2026 and 2027 in that we have built out incremental track at our landfill. When I say we have, actually Norfolk Southern has done it for us, of course, with our capital. They've also done that at our newer loading facility outside of New York City. Those two things were crucial for them to begin running a unit train for us, dedicated unit train, multiple days a week.

Speaker 4

That is actually scheduled to begin in the mid to late fourth quarter of this year. That will be very helpful to us. That will reduce transit times by potentially up to 25 to 30%. That helps the overall cost structure for Norfolk Southern, but also for us because it requires less railcar capital from us as we expand because you're getting more turns on your existing railcars. Those are all good things. Yes. The pending UP Norfolk Southern merger, first off, we have a very long term contract with Norfolk Southern that will have no effect on or should have no effect from the merger. We're not concerned about that. The UP really does not pull in the lane segments that we are operating in. Norfolk Southern is the predominant rail there. We really expect no material impact from their proposed merger.

Speaker 4

Thank you, Ron. That's helpful and good news on the expansions. Real quick on Seneca Meadows, I know you're going through kind of a permitting process for expansion there. Just any quick updates you could give us on how that process is going?

Speaker 4

Yeah, I would tell you that really we are tracking about as expected. We remain very confident in our ability to get the expansion. There's sort of a two step process. There's a three step process with the biggest one being local host agreement approval, and we have achieved that. There was also a legal challenge by some township group there, and that has been effectively stayed by the higher court in New York here in the last. It's been stayed is a better way to say it maybe than thwarted. We believe it's a good indication it will be forwarded, but it's been stayed. That's positive. There is a final technical demonstration through the state, you know, Doc. That is ongoing. We again remain confident that we're on track to obtain it.

Speaker 4

All right, thank you very much.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Stephanie Moore from Jefferies. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 1

Hi, good morning. Most of my questions have been asked. Apart from asking you, Ron and Mary Anne, how you're doing, I think I'll just throw in, as you think about your M&A opportunity and your pipeline going forward, is it at this point solely focused on kind of MSW deals, or is there a willingness to look outside of traditional MSW deals as well? Thank you.

Speaker 4

First off, Stephanie, thank you for asking how we're doing. Thankfully, we're doing all right. Appreciate that. As far as our pipeline, there is nothing in the pipeline that is anything but traditional solid waste deals. That is what is in the pipeline. That is what you will see closing in Q4. That is what you will see closing in 2026. We are not looking at something that is outside of our sort of core arena and do not believe there is any need to do so at this point in time.

Speaker 1

Very clear. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Our next question comes from Tony Bancroft from Gabelli Funds. Please go ahead with your question.

Speaker 2

Hey Ron and Mary Anne, thanks so much. Great job on the quarter and great job overall. Just regarding maybe Ron, I know it's really late in the game here, but regarding your view on maybe how PFAS will play out, I know it's sort of been quieted recently, but all these long term liabilities always seem to pop their heads up again. I just want to get your view on that at your landfills and the economics around that. Maybe a quick hip pocket lecture. You've seen others talk about doing these plastic sort of polymer plants and just want to get your view on what you think the economics on that are long term. Maybe just a quick hip pocket lecture, if you could.

Speaker 4

Sure, I appreciate it, Tony. With regard to PFAS, obviously things will continue to be codified through the federal government and we as an industry, and us as a company, will react to that. I can tell you that we have been working on this for the better part of three years. We've narrowed down to two to three technologies, all of which are working and performing very well. We have bought portable units at multiple of our landfills, effectively utilizing what I would call, in effect, a solidification and stabilization of the PFAS from a leachate and removing it before you do anything with the leachate and taking that PFAS, which is now in a solid form, and disposing of that properly. We're very confident in our ability to comply with it.

Speaker 4

We're confident in our ability to pass those appropriate costs on, in our rate increases to our customers, and demonstrate to publicly owned and privately owned wastewater treatment plants that the leachate is below a level from a PFAS standpoint of any federal regulation. It is not a needle mover in any direction for us on a real revenue opportunity or a real expense creep at this point in time. We remain confident in that. Plastics, obviously, one of the national companies has done a great job with their, I think now, two polymer centers. They've opened and planned to open a third. What I would say is those have been opened in relatively large urban markets where that company has a very nice position. I think it makes tremendous sense. I think they're demonstrating that it makes good sense there financially and sustainability wise.

Speaker 4

We are looking at some similar things, not a polymer center, but some similar plastic separation treatment technologies that could make sense. We're not prepared to say that they do, but we are moving down a road testing some of that. I would stay tuned on that. As you may know right now, plastics have been falling. The demand and the EPR requirements that are moving on through certain of the states, you're going to need to address plastics, we as a company, and us as an industry, to help those states comply with their EPR legislation. It will be a continued developing area.

Speaker 1

The one thing I would add, Tony, is just keep in mind that plastics are a tiny fraction of the overall stream of recyclables, and to Ron's point, if you have a critical mass in one area, the mass would be very different from having a small amount in lots of markets.

Speaker 1

Thanks so much. Great job.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Speaker 2

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll be concluding today's question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over to the management team for any closing remarks.

Speaker 4

Thank you, operator. If there are no further questions, on behalf of our entire management team, we appreciate your listening to and interest in our call today. Mary Anne Whitney and Joe Box are available today to answer any direct questions that we did not cover that we are allowed to answer under Regulation FD, Regulation G, and applicable securities laws in Canada. Thank you again and we look forward to connecting with you at upcoming investor conferences or on our next earnings call.

Speaker 2

Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we'll conclude today's conference call and presentation. We do thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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