Allied Waste Industries was a Fortune 500

Fortune 500

The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

 company headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

. A vertically integrated company that owned and operated solid waste collection businesses, recycling

Recycling

Recycling is processing used materials into new products to prevent waste of potentially useful materials, reduce the consumption of fresh raw materials, reduce energy usage, reduce air pollution and water pollution by reducing the need for "conventional" waste disposal, and lower greenhouse...

 facilities, and landfill

Landfill

A landfill site , is a site for the disposal of waste materials by burial and is the oldest form of waste treatment...

s, it was a leader in the solid waste

Waste management

Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...

 industry in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. It served more than 10 million residential, commercial and industrial customers across 128 major markets in 37 states and Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

.

After purchasing Houston-based giant waste hauler Browning-Ferris Industries

Browning-Ferris Industries

Browning-Ferris Industries was a North American waste management company that was disbanded in 1999. Its name is a licensed trademark of Allied Waste Industries. Its headquarters were located in the Eldridge Place 1 and 2 complex in the Energy Corridor area of Houston, Texas.BFI was founded in...

 (BFI) in 1999, together with private equity

Private equity

Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

 firms The Blackstone Group and Apollo Management

Apollo Management

Apollo Global Management, LLC is a private equity investment firm, founded in 1990 by former Drexel Burnham Lambert banker Leon Black. The firm specializes in leveraged buyout transactions and purchases of distressed securities involving corporate restructuring, special situations and industry...

., Allied Waste Industries, Inc. became the second largest non-hazardous solid waste management company in the United States (behind industry leader Waste Management, Inc.), with annual revenues of over $5 billion and assets of nearly $14 billion.

On June 23, 2008, Allied was purchased by its smaller competitor Republic Services, Inc

Republic Services, Inc

Republic Services, Inc is a waste management company. Once the third largest waste management firm in the United States, on June 23, 2008 it announced its intention to purchase its larger competitor Allied Waste Industries for $6.1 billion USD in Republic Services stock...

 for $6.1 billion USD. The merged company, retaining the Republic name, has become the second largest non-hazardous solid waste management company in the United States.

Environmental record

The company had a plan to reduce its local carbon footprint by more than 3.3 million pounds each year in San Mateo County, California

San Mateo County, California

San Mateo County is a county located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It covers most of the San Francisco Peninsula just south of San Francisco, and north of Santa Clara County. San Francisco International Airport is located at the northern end of the county, and...

, by converting its monthly 80,000 gallons of petroleum diesel to B20 bio-diesel fuel. Allied Waste converted the local 225-truck fleet to the clean-burning B20. Allied Waste was a member of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....

 (LEEDS) Program which is outlined by the U.S. Green Building Council. John J. Zillmer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Allied Waste, said, "Allied Waste has long been an active steward of our environment...we aim to employ environmentally responsible and sustainable practices." Allied Waste also implemented new innovations such as gas-to-energy projects. Gas-to-energy converts waste gas from landfills into electricity which offsets conventional use of oil and natural gas.

External links

• http://investor.alliedwaste.com/
• http://www.disposal.com/