February 15th, 2011

I recently attended an Executive Sustainability Summit hosted by Xerox, Waste Management (WM), and Arizona State University. The short conference brought together public and private sector managers working on environmental and social issues. Xerox asked me to attend and give my thoughts on what I heard and saw*.

What really struck me is that both Xerox and Waste Management are doing something mostly unheard of: they’re working with customers to help them use less of their traditional product or service. The plenary panel during the Summit included execs from both companies proudly talking about these fast-growing, service-oriented parts of their businesses. And what’s really important is that these are not just niche product lines, but fundamental shifts in what these companies do.

In some sense, this shift is not optional, as both companies are in the throes of fundamental transformations of their industries. Xerox has been navigating the shift to digital documents for years, and WM is facing an existential threat. As CEO Dave Steiner put it, “When your company is called Waste Management, and your customers all talk about ‘zero waste,’ you better change your business model.”

[Read more →]

May 19th, 2010

Waste Management, Inc. today announced it participated in a $6.9 million strategic investment in MicroGREEN Polymers, Inc. as part of a Series B round of financing. Houston-based Waste Management joined Seattle-based WRF Capital, Northwest Energy Angels and other private investors in the funding.

[Read more →]

August 26th, 2009

From Green Right Now Reports

Terrabon LLC, a Houston company that’s been investigating making fuel from waste for more than a decade, announced this week that waste collection giant Waste Management of Houston will become an investment partner.

WM, along with existing investment partner Valero Energy Corporation, hopes to make Terrabon’s vision of producing gasoline from waste a viable green alternative fuel within about two years.

Terrabon, unlike ethanol producers, will make its fuel, called MixAlco, from sewage, human solid waste and organic food garbage, not food stock. And it’s output will be a virtual chemical match (but at a higher octane) for the stuff that’s already powering your car or truck, not a gasoline additive. This key difference means that the Terrabon fuel can be added directly to the existing gasoline fuel stream, a convenience that the company is promoting as an easy, green way to reduce US reliance on foreign oil.

[Read more →]

April 8th, 2009

From Green Right Now Reports

Finally, those paper juice cartons that seem to fit somewhere in your recycling — but you never know quite where because they don’t fit with either the plastic milk jugs or the catalogs and newspapers — will have ordained passage to a recycling facility.

Waste Management in conjunction with Tropicana has announced that it will be taking in juice, milk, soy milk and other paper cartons in for recycling. Just throw them in your mixed-collection bin or together with your sorted bottles for recycling and they’ll sort them out at the plant.

So if you have WMI service, go fish those Tropicana cartons out of the garbage. If you have another service, carton recycling may still be available. To find out if your local collection service accepts them, see the Carton Council’s “We Recycle Cartons” handy online locator.

[Read more →]