OUR SUSTAINABILITY COMMITMENT

Sustainable Waste Management

Despite great work to increase recycling rates, the world is making more waste than ever before. Today, humans generate 82% more waste per person than we did in 1960.* Increases in overall waste generation are outpacing recycling participation rates, with no signs of slowing.

The waste management industry plays a critical role in the sustainability of our world. We recognize our role as an essential partner to the environment, and we strive to be a leader in environmental services. By recycling and recovering precious resources from the waste our communities generate, we can reduce overall consumption of limited natural resources. WIN Waste strives to recover as many resources as possible, and we provide sustainable end-of-life waste management, including renewable energy, resource recovery, and greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

The EPA developed the non-hazardous materials and waste management hierarchy recognizing that no single waste management approach is suitable for all materials and waste streams in all circumstances. The hierarchy ranks the various management strategies from most to least environmentally preferred. The hierarchy emphasizes reducing, reusing, and recycling as key to sustainable materials management.

WIN Waste plays a critical supporting role in this effort by offering waste collection, treatment, and disposal options that focus on recovering as many renewable attributes from the waste stream as possible.

Climate Change Mitigation

WIN Waste helps mitigate global climate change by collecting, analyzing, and managing performance data for critical environmental metrics (including but not limited to greenhouse gas emissions, energy consumption, and air pollution emissions) and by reducing or eliminating operational risks through adaptive management of business policies, procedures, and strategies.

Zero Waste

WIN Waste aims to help deliver a waste-free world; that’s why we partner with communities on sustainable waste management solutions for waste generated today, while also providing waste reduction education, recycling, composting infrastructure, and more, to help communities continuously reduce the amount of waste they produce and to give manufacturers access to the recovered materials they need to make zero-waste goods.

We are committed to innovating our way to a future where all new products are designed with zero-waste in mind. With our track record of innovation, we intend to be a leader in the more circular economy to come.

Municipal Solid Waste Management: 1960-2018

* United States Environmental Protection Agency, “National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes, and Recycling,” https://www.epa.gov/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling/national-overview-facts-and-figures-materials, last accessed October 30, 2022.

HOW OUR OPERATIONS SUPPORT A SUSTAINABLE MATERIALS MANAGEMENT STRATEGY Recycling

Our material recovery facilities (MRFs) recover and sort paper, cardboard, plastics, and metals from residential and commercial customers; these recovered materials are used to manufacture new products.

Our C&D transfer stations process construction and demolition material and extract and process renewables such as metal, crushed rock, and wood, which are reused in building projects.

Advanced technology at our renewables facilities help us recover metals that would otherwise have been too comingled to be noticed (think: metal gears in a clock).

Energy Recovery

Our renewables facilities take the inherent caloric value in waste and convert it to a renewable energy source. At our Taylor County resource recovery facility, we capture gases released as waste decomposes and convert them into renewable natural gas.

End-of-Life Management

After as many materials as possible have been recovered from the waste stream, the content that remains must be disposed. Advanced engineering at our landfills plays an important role in the safe disposal and sequestration of these materials.

Sustainable Transportation

By transporting non-converted waste to our resource recovery facilities via rail, we avoid the carbon emissions of thousands of trips — one train carries the weight of hundreds of trucks. Fewer trucks on roadways also means less wear and tear on highway infrastructure.

More fuel efficient

• U.S. railroads move 1 ton of freight 480+ miles on 1 gallon of fuel (on average)

• Railroads are 3-4 times more fuel efficient than trucks

Fewer GHG emissions

• Moving waste by rail reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 75%

Better for infrastructure

• One train can carry the weight of hundreds of trucks, which reduces highway congestion

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration

The Energy Effect

According to the “Annual Energy Outlook” from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA), electricity demands are expected to rapidly increase as a result of economic recovery, population increases, climate-related weather changes, and increased adoption of charging devices (electronics, electric vehicles). Despite forecasted progress with renewable energy generation, the increase in energy demand means that the EIA expects natural gas and oil production, consumption, and exports to continue to increase.

Because demand for fossil fuels is not expected to slow anytime soon, energyfrom-waste will play a crucial role in renewable energy generation in the future.

net exports electric power commercial residential transportation industrial

Negative Carbon Impact

Waste-to-energy is not a power generation operation; it is a sustainable waste management operation that produces electricity as a byproduct. Waste gets converted into a renewable attribute.

Waste-to-energy is the only form of renewable energy generation with a negative carbon impact from avoided emissions when looking at the entire value chain across the lifecycle of waste.

Although WIN Waste’s waste-to-energy process produces a carbon footprint, landfill waste produces methane, a greenhouse that has a global warming potential more than 80 times that of carbon dioxide in its first 20 years and 25 times greater over the course of 100 years. By processing waste in our renewables facilities, thus diverting it from landfills, we are eliminating vast amounts of future greenhouse gas emissions.

Lifecycle CO 2 e Emissions (g/kWh)

Lifecycle CO2e Emissions (g/kWh)

Waste-to energy is the only source of energy that eliminates a source of emissions (waste) that otherwise would have contributed a substantial amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Source: : IPCC (“IPCC Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change, Annex III: Technology - specific cost and performance parameters - Table A.III.2 (Emissions of selected electricity supply technologies (gCO 2eq/kWh)

Waste-to-energy is a baseload provider of energy to meet the country’s growing electricity demands, and it contributes to the global economy’s transition to net zero emissions. In 2022, WIN Waste generated 3.3 million MWh of renewable energy for the power grid, providing enough energy to power 340,000 homes.