Casella Waste Systems Q2 2025 Earnings Report

Casella Waste Systems EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.36
• Consensus EPS: $0.31
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.05
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.22

Casella Waste Systems Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $465.33 million
• Expected Revenue: $454.01 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$11.33 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +23.40%

Casella Waste Systems Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2025
• Date: 7/31/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Friday, August 1, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 10:00AM ET

Casella Waste Systems (NASDAQ:CWST) is a regional solid waste services company headquartered in Rutland, Vermont. Founded in 1975, the company provides waste collection, transfer, disposal, recycling and resource-recovery services to residential, commercial, industrial and municipal customers.

Casella’s services include curbside and commercial waste collection, construction and demolition debris management, transfer station operations, recycling of paper, cardboard, plastics and other materials, and organics recycling. The company also operates landfills and develops landfill-gas and other renewable-energy projects that support the recovery of value from waste.

The company primarily serves communities and businesses across the northeastern United States, including Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Maine and Pennsylvania. Casella was founded by John W. Casella, who has served as the company’s chairman and chief executive officer.

Casella Waste Systems Q2 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Our Q2 revenues were $465.3 M (+23.4% YoY) and adjusted EBITDA was $109.5 M (+19.5% YoY), while first-half adjusted free cash flow hit a record $70.8 M, $30 M above last year.
• Positive Sentiment: We closed six acquisitions year-to-date adding ~$90 M in annualized revenue and signed to acquire Mountain State Waste for an additional ~$30 M, supported by a robust M&A pipeline and healthy balance sheet with 2.39x leverage.
• Positive Sentiment: Landfill volumes rose 9.5% YoY (internalization +12%), and our Resource Solutions segment outperformed despite a 16% drop in commodity prices thanks to risk-sharing contracts.
• Positive Sentiment: We raised 2025 revenue guidance to $1.83 B and reaffirmed adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow outlooks, reflecting solid waste pricing strength and accretive acquisitions.
• Negative Sentiment: The Mid Atlantic integration lagged due to ERP conversions and delayed automated truck deliveries, creating a temporary margin drag even as $5–$10 M of synergies are expected over the next few years.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Casella Waste Systems, Inc Q2 2025 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press *11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Brian Butler, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Brian J. Butler, VP of Investor Relations at Casella Waste Systems]

Thank you, Daniel. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on the call. Today, we'll be discussing our Second Quarter 2025 results, which were released yesterday afternoon. This morning, I'm joined with John Casella, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Casella Waste Systems, Ned Coletta, our President, Bradford Helgeson, our Chief Financial Officer, and Sean Steves, our Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Casella Waste Operations. After a review of these results and an update on the company's activities and business environment, we'll be happy to take your questions. Please note that various remarks we may make about the company's future expectations, plans, and prospects constitute forward-looking statements for the purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

[Brian J. Butler, VP of Investor Relations at Casella Waste Systems]

Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by these forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors section of our most recent Form 10-Q, which is on file with the SEC. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views on any subsequent date. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if our views change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any date subsequent to today, August 1st, 2025. Also, during this call, we'll be referring to non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles.

[Brian J. Butler, VP of Investor Relations at Casella Waste Systems]

Reconciliations of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, to the extent they are available without unreasonable effort, are included in our press release filed on Form 8-K with the SEC. With that, I will now turn over the call to John Casella to begin our discussion. John?

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

Thanks, Brian, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Second Quarter 2025 Conference Call. In June, we proudly rang the NASDAQ opening bell to commemorate Casella's 50th anniversary. This milestone marks our evolution from a single truck operation in Vermont to a leading provider of waste, recycling, and resource management services across the Northeast and now into the Mid-Atlantic. Over five decades of growth, our dedicated team has consistently delivered exceptional service and industry leadership, all while staying true to our core values and working toward a cleaner, more sustainable future. I would like to sincerely thank all of our employees for their grit, hard work, and commitment every day. The celebration was not only a reflection of our past but also a reaffirmation of our vision for the future.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

It highlighted the strength of our culture, the resilience of our business model, and the deep trust we've built with our customers and communities. We're incredibly proud of the legacy we've created and energized by the opportunities ahead. Turning to the quarter, we delivered another strong performance in Q2 with robust growth in both revenue and adjusted EBITDA. Year-to-date, we've achieved record first-half adjusted free cash flow over $70 million, more than $30 million above the same period last year. These results reflect solid execution and meaningful contributions from our recent acquisitions. Pricing remains healthy with solid waste pricing up 5% year-over-year. We continue to execute well on our operating plans, driving meaningful margin improvement across our legacy business.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

This performance has been partially offset by some growing pains in the Mid-Atlantic as we work through the transition to our systems and getting the acquired fleet up to our standards. We are executing on a plan to rapidly get this performance on track. Elsewhere, landfill volumes were up nicely year-over-year, and our resource solutions segment continued to perform very well, driven by improved performance at our upgraded recycling facilities. We've now completed six acquisitions year to date, representing about $90 million in annualized revenues, and we're excited about the pending acquisition of Mountain State Waste, which will expand our footprint in Pennsylvania and also into West Virginia, adding another $30 million in annualized revenues. We look forward to welcoming their employees and customers to the Casella family and integrating their operations into our broader network.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

Our M&A pipeline remains full of targets that align perfectly with our strategy, and our strong balance sheet positions us to continue to pursue and complete these deals opportunistically. Looking ahead, we raised our full-year revenue guidance, reflecting the continued strength of our core pricing and acquisition activity, and reaffirmed our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted free cash flow guidance ranges, representing another year of record financial results. With that, I'll turn it over to Brad to walk through the financials in more detail.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. Revenues in the second quarter were $465.3 million, up $88.2 million, or 23.4% year-over-year, with $67.1 million from acquisitions, including rollover, and $21 million from organic growth, or 5.6%. Solid waste revenues were up 27.1% year-over-year, with price up 5% and volume down 0.8%. Within solid waste, price in the collection line of business was up 4.9% in the quarter, led by 5.9% price in front-load commercial, and volume was down 1.2%. However, year-over-year volume trends improved from the first quarter, with indications of a stable economy in our markets. Price in the disposal line of business was up 5.8% and volume up 0.6% year-over-year. Results in the landfill business were strong, with total tons up 9.5%, including higher third-party MSW and C&D volumes, and over 12% growth in internalized volumes.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

We feel that we have meaningful opportunities to grow volumes further at our sites, but it's safe to say that the persistent market headwinds that we experienced last year are behind us. We drove price 8.2% at the transfer stations, with flat volume in the quarter. Resource solutions revenues were up 10.2% year-over-year, with recycling and other processing revenue up 9.6% and national accounts up 10.6%. Within resource solutions processing operations, our average recycled commodity sales price was down 16% year-over-year, with softer markets across the board and most commodities now selling below five-year averages. Notwithstanding market pressures, our contract structures share this risk with our customers by adjusting tip fees in down markets. The net impact of lower prices on our revenue was just 1.6%, or less than $1 million.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Processing volume in revenue terms was up 8.6%, driven by higher volumes at the Boston and Willimantic recycling facilities. Within national accounts revenue, price was up 5.9% and volume up 1.9%. Adjusted EBITDA was $109.5 million in the quarter, up $17.9 million, or 19.5% year-over-year, with contribution from acquisitions, including rollover and organic growth. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 23.5% in the quarter, down approximately 75 basis points year-over-year. Bridging the year-over-year change in adjusted EBITDA margin, acquisitions contributing at lower initial margins than our overall business presented a headwind of 85 basis points.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

The base business on a same-store basis expanded margins by 10 basis points overall, with legacy footprint operations growing margins by over 100 basis points, with the Mid-Atlantic region representing a near-term headwind as we continue to work through business integration and synergy execution impacted by ongoing system conversions and delays in truck deliveries. I should note that these headwinds are transitory and represent margin expansion opportunity in the future, which we expect to see in 2026. Cost of operations were $308.1 million in the quarter, up $64.3 million year-over-year, with $48.2 million of the increase from acquisitions and $16.1 million in the base business. General and administrative costs were $54.5 million in the quarter, up $7.3 million year-over-year. Depreciation and amortization costs were up $21.7 million year-over-year, with $16.1 million resulting from the recent acquisition activity, including the amortization of acquired intangibles.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

As a reference, D&A associated with acquisitions was approximately 24% of acquired revenues in the quarter as compared to 15% for our base business. Adjusted net income was $23 million in the quarter, or $0.36 per diluted share, up $1.3 million and down $0.01 per share. GAAP net income was $5.2 million in the quarter, impacted by a $6.9 million increase in amortization of acquired intangibles. Net cash provided by operating activities was $139.6 million in the first six months of 2025, up $59.9 million year-over-year, driven by EBITDA growth and more normalized seasonal working capital flows as compared to 2024. DSO was 34 days, down two days from year-end and four days year-over-year. Adjusted free cash flow was $70.8 million, a record for the first six months and representing approximately 40% of our full-year guidance.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Capital expenditures were $121.9 million, up $47 million year-over-year, including $40 million of upfront one-time investment in recent acquisitions. As of June 30, we had $1.16 billion of debt and $218 million of cash. Our consolidated net leverage ratio for purposes of our bank covenants was 2.39x, and our $700 million revolver remained undrawn. Our liquidity and leverage profile will enable us to be opportunistic in continuing to execute on our growth strategy and robust M&A pipeline. As announced in our press release yesterday, we updated some of our guidance ranges for 2025. We raised our revenue guidance to a midpoint of $1.83 billion in light of acquisition activity to date.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

However, we reaffirmed our range on adjusted EBITDA as the contribution from our announced acquisition activity since establishing guidance has not yet exceeded the original range, and we remain cautious on the pace of synergy execution this year in the Mid-Atlantic region. We also raised the bottom end of our ranges on adjusted free cash flow and cash flow from operating activities based on the strength of cash flow year to date and our confidence in the second half. Regarding cash flow, I should note that we will not see a benefit from the recent tax legislation in 2025, as we would not have been a federal cash taxpayer in any event. However, the provisions of the tax bill, most significantly the reinstatement of bonus depreciation, will certainly benefit our tax position in the future, deferring and ultimately reducing our eventual federal cash tax burden.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

With that, I'll turn it over to Ned.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Thanks, Brad, and good morning, everyone. As highlighted in an earnings release yesterday, we delivered another strong quarter of growth with solid performance across key financial metrics. Organic trends remain positive in the second quarter, with solid waste pricing up 5% year-over-year and total company volumes up 30 basis points, with particular strength in resource solutions and landfill volumes. Collection operations made meaningful improvements. We completed 11 routing projects that reduced both route days and driver headcount requirements. Operational productivity in our Eastern and Western regions remains strong, with direct labor and overtime costs flat on a trailing 12-month basis. This helped to offset cost pressures in our Mid-Atlantic region, where labor costs are currently running hundreds of basis points higher than in other regions.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

As John mentioned, truck delivery delays and system conversions in the Mid-Atlantic had a domino impact in the quarter, delaying route optimization, automation, and other cost synergies from being recognized as quickly as expected. We do expect 55 additional trucks to deliver in late 2025 to the Mid-Atlantic region, with nearly 40 of these trucks being automated. In our resource solutions segment, adjusted EBITDA increased $1.8 million in the second quarter, mainly driven by improved efficiencies at our recently upgraded Willimantic and Boston recycling processing facilities. This operational strength, along with our floating processing and SRA fees, more than offset the impact of weaker commodity prices, which declined roughly $20 a ton, or 16% year-over-year. Landfill volumes were up significantly, with total volumes up 88,000 tons year-over-year, or 9.5%, with increased internalization driving a 55,000 ton increase, or roughly 13%.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

We also continue to source more construction and demolition tons, mainly due to the previously announced competitor landfill closure on Long Island, which had been a headwind throughout 2024. Since opening in mid-2024, our McKean landfill has successfully accepted over 400 rail cars and processed close to 2,000 containers of waste. We're building out a new rail offload transfer building at the site to expand the range of materials that can be handled from the current containerized MSW to also include gondolas of MSW, C&D, and soils. We expect these upgrades to be completed in the first half of 2026, and at that time, we'll work to drive additional internalization to the site and also selectively attract new customers and material streams. We also continue to execute well against our acquisition strategy, as John mentioned, closing three additional deals in the second quarter, totaling over $40 million of annualized revenues.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Additionally, we're really excited about the agreement to acquire Mountain State Waste, which will expand our geographic footprint and add an incremental $30 million of annualized revenues after it closes. As we enter the second half of 2025, our acquisition pipeline remains robust, with over $500 million of annualized revenue opportunities. Our balance sheet remains strong, with leverage under 2.4X and total liquidity of approximately $900 million. Our outlook for the remainder of 2025 remains positive, supported by continued execution of our acquisition strategy in a resilient, sustainable organic growth model. Our limited exposure to commodity prices and tariffs further reinforces our confidence in delivering consistent results. With that, I'll turn it back to the operator for questions. Thank you.

[Operator]

As a reminder, to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press *11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Your line is open.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James]

Hey, good morning, guys. Can you all hear me?

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

Sure can. Yeah, good morning, Tyler.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James]

Hey, morning. Ned, can we just kind of start with the Mid-Atlantic?

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James]

It seems like maybe that group is lagging a little bit. Maybe can you talk about some of the reasons why? I think you're implementing an ERP system there, but big picture, once that new system is in place, won't there be a substantial pricing opportunity in that market in 2026? I was under the impression that pushing price was kind of, call it, logistically difficult, and cash collections were kind of slow on that legacy system.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, great question, Tyler. If we flashback in time, there's always those moments where you make an R&D decision, and we maybe made one that's been a little bit painful. When we acquired the businesses originally from GFL, we decided to actually stay in the same billing operating system they had been operating. It was more of an R&D decision for us to see, you know, how it would work and if it was something that would work for the rest of our business. Flash forward, it's not a great system. There's not great analytics. There's not great routing capabilities. There's a lot of issues. About nine months ago, eight months ago, we decided to move to our legacy billing system, which has stood the test of time. It's been amazing, called SoftPak, but upgrading to the latest version.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

We're very rapidly doing so in the Mid-Atlantic, but as I mentioned, it is a bit of a domino effect because not all those businesses are running in the exact same billing system today. We haven't been able to move all newly acquired businesses onto that system. The truck delays just compound the whole thing where we haven't been able to get automation, routing synergies. We're not feeling bad about our plans or our synergy expectations. It's just taking longer. To your question about pricing, you're 100% right about that. There's not the same level of visibility around elasticity around pricing that we have in our legacy system. There is opportunity there as well.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James]

Okay, I'll try to ask this question. We'll see what you give me. What would you say the synergy EBITDA benefit could be from that group of assets in 2026? I mean, is this a couple million bucks, or is this $10 million or more? Just any color?

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, we haven't fully built out our budget for next year, and we're still working through the steps here. On the routing side, this will come in over the course of a couple of years, as you're aware. We had said there was ultimately as much as $5 million, $6 million, $7 million of benefit over several years as we automate that fleet. On the back office side, there's millions of dollars of benefit over, I wouldn't say it's all at once, as we get the systems issues resolved. You're looking at $5 million-$10 million over a couple of years. We'll give a better idea on the pacing of that when we get our budget pulled together.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James]

Okay, yeah, that's very helpful. Can we turn to Mountain State? I'm just kind of curious about what some of the dynamics are in West Virginia. Is that a disposal neutral market? Can you internalize that through a transfer station? Just what's the market structure there? It looks like they have a really nice set of assets. Will that kind of serve as a mini platform in that region?

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

It will. You know, the majority of a good portion of the assets are in Pennsylvania and the expansion into West Virginia. The expansion into West Virginia is through into Morgantown, which is a very, it's a terrific MSA in West Virginia, a lot of growth there because of the university. It's a secondary tertiary market that we're similar, you know, similar to some of our other markets. I think that there is an opportunity for us to continue to build off of that platform. There are operations we do go into Ohio and Kentucky with the West Virginia assets. There is an opportunity for us to add to that platform on a go-forward basis.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, and Tyler, as you may be aware, it's a franchise market. They have these lifetime franchise agreements that come with part of the acquisition. In those markets, we would either be the sole provider or there might be several providers, but you have a franchise agreement where you're picking up customers within a defined rate structure. It's a very nice, well-run, profitable business with great assets.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James]

Yeah, definitely looks like it. My last one here, just Brad, this is a minutia modeling question. Why did the interest expense guidance drop so much? Was that, I mean, it doesn't look like the debt balance really moved, and I'm doubting the coupon moved that much. Just what was going on there?

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

I think just as the year progresses, you know, we're just refining our view and letting some of the conservatism on that line out is really the bottom line.

[Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James]

Okay, yeah, no, I just wanted to go over that. All right, thank you, guys.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Thank you.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Adam Bubes with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

[Adam Bubes, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Hi, good morning.

[Adam Bubes, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Just had a follow-up on the Mid-Atlantic dynamic. Just to put a finer point on it, is this a case where it's slower than expected synergy realization, or are we also realizing incremental costs in the Mid-Atlantic year-over-year that's impacting that margin bridge associated with integration?

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

It's just slower synergy realization. We expected trucks to deliver sooner, which would have allowed us to do more automation, taking other trucks, labor off the road. As I mentioned with Tyler, we really are having to move back to the legacy Casella order-to-cash system with an upgrade. The system we took over from GFL just isn't allowing us the flexibility to achieve our business model in the way we expected. It's a little bit more of a delay there. Nothing.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

The first half of the year, truck delivery was a significant issue. The majority, a good portion of the trucks that are coming in, the 55 that are coming in before the end of the year, a good portion of those go to the Mid-Atlantic. That will allow Sean and his team to really go after some of the synergies that we weren't able to capture.

[Adam Bubes, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Understood. I think you closed on $40 million annualized revenues incremental interquarter. Can you just expand on the details of those transactions in terms of geographic and business mix? Any other details?

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, we don't typically give out the names, but we had one acquisition that was into our Western region. It's an existing market. We'll be able to develop tuck-in synergies with that. We'll ultimately be able to consolidate routes. Good, solid acquisition. We had two other acquisitions in the Mid-Atlantic. One is a very direct overlay, which will have nice synergies over the next couple of next year plus. It's in Delaware to southern Pennsylvania. Then a second acquisition in Pennsylvania that is a bridge between two operations. It's right in between, has some overlay, but it expands territory slightly. It's all really nice fits and acquisitions we've been working on for a period of time and have good synergy value.

[Adam Bubes, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Thinking back to the second half of last year, I think you had some margin headwinds from insurance events, incentive comp, and lower landfill volumes were also a headwind. With landfill volumes having recovered now and lapping some of those headwinds from last year, is it fair to think margins could expand at or better than the sort of 50 basis points of underlying margin expansion trend, or how should we think about the sequential margin expansion in the back half of the year? Thanks.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, good question. This is Brad. Certainly the landfill business flipping from a headwind to a tailwind will be a nice driver of margin expansion year-over-year in the second half. I would say, though, that the margins implied by the fact that we raised our revenue guidance, we held our guidance range and adjusted EBITDA, that implied slightly softer margins than we had expected for the second half. That's really, again, not to keep harping on it, but it's the Mid-Atlantic. I think what we're seeing is 50, 60 basis points of kind of same-store margin improvement. In the first half, the legacy operations have exceeded that, and then the Mid-Atlantic was a bit of a drag. I think the pace at which we can execute on the synergies, get trucks delivered, etc., that's really going to tell the tale for the second half on margins.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

You have those different factors that are going to be impacting it.

[Adam Bubes, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs]

Great, thanks so much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Trevor Romeo with William Blair. Your line is open.

[Trevor Romeo, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair]

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I was just hoping you could maybe speak, good morning. Hoping you could speak to the volume performance in the quarter and the outlook. I think, Brad, you mentioned indications of stable economy in your markets and clearly some good trends in the landfill. You've also got some of the Brookhaven factors in your own internalization initiatives, I guess. Hoping you could maybe just talk to what you're seeing in the cyclical areas of volume and help us parse out the underlying trends in your markets versus the more Casella-specific trends.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Sure. Hey, Trevor. If you recall, in the first quarter, we talked in particular about a really soft environment for roll-off. At the time we weren't really sure was that weather, and it was a difficult weather quarter in the Northeast. Was it weather, or was there some underlying economic weakness at play as well? That business has recovered nicely. I don't think we're seeing a booming economy by any respect, but things have stabilized. The year-over-year numbers from a volume perspective, really across the board, are stronger in the second quarter than they were in the first quarter. Ned mentioned something in his prepared remarks that I don't want to necessarily let go unnoticed. Our volume overall across solid waste and resource solutions was actually positive year-over-year. We tend to break up how we talk about volume between those two business lines.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Overall, including recyclables, including our national accounts business, our collection business, and of course, landfills, it's actually a pretty good volume story.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, and it doesn't get reflected in our bond stock, Brad, but it is important to note that a good degree of the volume increase at the landfills was internalized volume, you know, almost 60,000 tons. That really reflects, one, getting synergies derived from acquisitions that we've done over the last two years as we've rolled off contracts, and also just our efforts over the last year to put new transportation lanes in place and ensure that transfer stations are getting to our landfills to create that value. Another strong quarter there by our team of getting that job done and delivering those benefits.

[Trevor Romeo, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair]

Okay, thank you both. That's really helpful there. Sorry, just wanted to go back one more time to, I guess, the Mid-Atlantic. I think you talked about the systems and the fleet, I think, in detail already. I think one comment I caught from Ned was labor running much hotter. If I look at your expense details, I think direct labor costs were up like 170 basis points year-over-year as a percentage of revenue. Maybe just a little more detail on what's going in there. Is it primarily just not having the automated trucks yet, or is something else going on with labor there?

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, so we've mentioned this a few times, where the labor cost as a % of revenue or net revenue in the Mid-Atlantic is much higher than our legacy hauling businesses in the Northeast. That's because there's a lack of automation, a lack of optimization of routes. It won't get all solved at once. This is going to take years to solve as we get new trucks into a fleet, as we look to automate certain municipal contracts. Right now, we have a much higher degree of labor servicing the same revenue base in that market, which is a great opportunity. As we've mentioned a few times, we thought we were going to yield that opportunity a little bit faster in 2025. Now with truck delays, it's coming a little slower. The opportunity is there.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

We expect that to start coming down, and we expect that to be a real tailwind into the future where we can start taking that labor out of that business model.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

More broadly across the business, Trevor, we are seeing labor costs at sort of the upper end of our cost stack from an inflation standpoint. Overall, we think we're comfortably covering cost inflation with our pricing programs as we aim to do. Labor has been one of the higher running line items, candidly, from an inflation standpoint.

[Trevor Romeo, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair]

Got it. All right, thank you all. Really appreciate it.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jim Schumm with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

[Jim Schumm, Senior Analyst at TD Cowen]

Hey, good morning. Thanks, guys. On the collection pricing, it looks like a fairly significant dip in the second quarter sequentially. You went from 5.8% in Q1 to 4.9%, which seems pretty unusual quarter to quarter sequentially there. What's driving that?

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Hey, Jim, it's Brad. Part of the issue is mix. Across the lines of business, front-end commercial has been our strongest line of business from a pricing standpoint. Roll-off has been the relative weakest. In the first quarter, you have much less roll-off activity than there is in the second quarter. The best I could explain it is it's sort of a reweighting of the business lines rather than a same-store decline in pricing trends.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, we also had great pricing in the front-load line of business in the port of Braz. You laid out very strong pricing in the residential line of business as well. Our pricing was a bit weaker in the roll-off. As we exited the spring and volumes were a bit weaker than we expected, we didn't test market last 50 as much as we may in certain years. We were looking for those volumes. It really isn't into June, into July that we were able to start pushing price a bit more in the roll-off line of business. We're starting to see that come more now.

[Jim Schumm, Senior Analyst at TD Cowen]

Okay, great. Thanks. What's the longer-term outlook for resource solutions? I mean, can this grow as quickly as solid waste, or does it become proportionately smaller over time?

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

I think that the evolution of resource solutions in terms of providing the services that our customers are looking for, whether it's colleges and universities, municipalities, industrial customers, I think that the resource solutions part of the business, or materials management as we call it, is going to continue to grow at a fairly rapid pace. We have tremendous opportunity in the Mid-Atlantic as an example. We're just beginning to scratch the surface. We put the sales team in place, obviously. We're beginning to work that at this point in time. When you think about Mid-Atlantic as an example from a resource solutions standpoint, we've got tremendous opportunities from an industrial standpoint to really add a lot of value to the business on a go-forward. I think that we're going to continue to see resource solutions grow at a fairly rapid pace.

[Jim Schumm, Senior Analyst at TD Cowen]

Okay, got it. Thanks. If I could just squeeze one more, if you don't mind, you know, CapEx as a, thank you. CapEx as a % of sales has sort of been running 12% to 13% over the past few years. It seems kind of high relative to maybe your landfill composition to me. How do you see that evolving over time? What's the right sort of capital intensity? Where do we land in, you know, I don't know, three, four years?

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, Jim, it's going to go up and down, of course, as you know, based on our schedule for landfill cell development. The collection business, just trucks and containers, that tends to be 6% to 7% of revenue. Landfill could bring that number up significantly depending on how busy the construction schedule is for a particular year. I'd also point out a unique factor given the relative significance of our acquisition activity is that when we acquire businesses, we tend to, not in all cases, but generally, we tend to have pretty significant upfront CapEx as we try and in one shot bring their asset base up to our standards in terms of the fleet, in terms of the facilities. Certainly that is a factor as well. For us, given the relative importance of acquisition activity, it is probably a bit different from our competitors.

[Jim Schumm, Senior Analyst at TD Cowen]

Understood. Great. Thanks for the answers, guys. Appreciate it.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

Yep.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press *11 on your telephone. Again, that is *11 to ask a question. Our next question comes from Stephanie Moore with Jefferies. Your line is open.

[Stephanie Moore, Senior VP of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Hi, good morning. Thank you.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

Good morning.

[Stephanie Moore, Senior VP of Equity Research at Jefferies]

I wanted to maybe touch on a bigger picture question here. Given the current administration does appear to be a bit more amenable to larger scale M&A, if that changes your acquisition strategy at all, or if there's anything you can call out from a pipeline standpoint. Thank you.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, I don't think that it really changes our strategy at all, Stephanie. I think that we've indicated that, you know, we see great opportunity on the Eastern Seaboard. There are some larger companies there, but we're still focused on solidifying the investment that we have in the Northeast, solidifying the investment that we've just made in the Mid-Atlantic in terms of taking advantage of those platforms, continuing to add tuck-ins to those platforms as well. Obviously, looking for additional platforms down the Eastern Seaboard. I don't think that it changes our strategy from an M&A standpoint at all.

[Stephanie Moore, Senior VP of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Thank you. Appreciate it.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

I think it's certainly beneficial in terms of the tax depreciation, etc. It's very positive in terms of how we look at that with regard to the M&A activity on a go-forward basis from a tax perspective. Very positive.

[Stephanie Moore, Senior VP of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Excellent. I was hoping if maybe you could give us a bit more of an update on McKean. I know you called out some good investments and opportunities there. As we think about just the timing of maybe some of those investments starting to come to fruition here and, you know, any potential impact we can expect to see over the course of the next 24 months or so. Thank you.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, so McKean first became operational late last spring, and we started off very slowly. We started to ramp this site more a bit this spring. To date, we're only taking containerized MSW. So like in 12 high boxes, we offload, gantry train, run them up to the face of the landfill. Our permit at the site stipulates that we're going to offload any gondolas, so loose MSW, loose C&D, or contaminated soils. We need to do so inside a building. We've always had plans to add a transfer station, transfer building at the site. We had all the rail track outlaid to do that, and we're starting to build that building now. We'll expect that to be completed into the first quarter. That will allow us actually to complete some vertical integration. Initially, with one of our transfer stations, we'll look to move there.

[Ned Coletta, President at Casella Waste Systems]

It also opens up some additional streams of waste from third parties that we may consider. As we've said for a long time, we've never opened McKean to just become a big third-party commercial site. It's really a lot of it is defense for the Northeast for the next 5 to 10 years as there's a lot of risk around disposal capacity. We want to make money at the site. We want to have great returns. Getting this building completed, ramping up volumes a bit more, all part of that strategy. We expect McKean to be a positive volume contributor through 2026. We'll let you know as we get that volume ramp scheduled together.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that it's a really nice opportunity for us to open up McKean for some select customers, two or three select customers that could be a base on a go-forward basis, particularly as Ned said, after we get completion of the building, then we'll be able to take the gondolas, which really opens up our opportunity. Meanwhile, the team has really done a great job of getting up to speed operationally. They're moving the containers. They're really getting the experience and the operating wherewithal to be able to perform at a high level there. We're pretty excited about that. Once we're able to broaden what we can take there with the building, it's going to be a positive in 2026.

[Brad J. Helgeson, CFO at Casella Waste Systems]

As a footnote to what Ned mentioned about the investment to bring on the capability to accept gondola waste, you'll notice in the reconciliation of our guidance numbers in the press release, this quarter we have a line for McKean rail. That was a lot of spend last year, hadn't really factored into our forecasting for this year until we decided to add this capability. That's why there's that additional number in the reconciliation to free cash flow.

[Stephanie Moore, Senior VP of Equity Research at Jefferies]

Understood. Thank you.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

You're welcome.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to John W. Casella for closing remarks.

[John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO at Casella Waste Systems]

Thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning, and look forward to all of you joining us for our third quarter call in October. Thanks, everybody, and have a great day.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Ned Coletta, President
• Brian J. Butler, VP of Investor Relations
• John W. Casella, Chairman and CEO
• Brad J. Helgeson, CFO

Analysts

• Jim Schumm, Senior Analyst at TD Cowen
• Tyler Brown, Financial Advisor at Raymond James
• Adam Bubes, VP of Equity Research at Goldman Sachs
• Stephanie Moore, Senior VP of Equity Research at Jefferies
• Trevor Romeo, Equity Research Analyst at William Blair