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By the numbers
Full-year 2024 revenue: $6.03B
Up 2.4% year over year
Q4 net income: $86.6M
Up 3.1% year over year
Full-year net income: $391M
Down 2.8% year over year
- 2025 recap: Clean Harbors met or outperformed prevously announced financial guidance metrics for 2025, driven in part by higher profitability in both of the company’s operating segments, co-CEO Eric Gerstenberg said on the company’s earnings call Wednesday. Adjusted free cash flow reached a record $509.3 million for the year.
- Environmental services: The segment reported revenue up 6% quarter over quarter. Field services revenue was up 13%, driven by $30 million in emergency response activity. The company reported handling 22,000 emergency response events in 2025, up roughly 5% year over year. Executives also noted that work with industrial clients had ticked up slightly by the end of Q4, leading co-CEO Mike Battles to say the sector "may have turned a corner" following several quarters of softness.
- Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions: The turnaround of Clean Harbors’ oil re-refining business continues thanks to the company's charge-for-oil pricing strategy. Revenues for the segment were still down in the fourth quarter and full year, but the company reported improved adjusted earnings before income, taxes, depreciation and amortization in Q4 year over year. Battles attributed that shift to the company's aggressive management of its re-refining spread, with a charge rate nearly 50% above the third quarter. The company is also investing $50 million into its vacuum truck fleet as it continues to see opportunity for growth in its Safety-Kleen branch business.
- Incinerators: Utilization rate for the year was 87%, excluding the Kimball incinerator, which continues to ramp up. The facility is expected to take on higher volumes and more complex waste streams this year, adding revenue to Clean Harbors’ environmental services business. The company also continues to push pricing for its incinerators ahead of inflation, Gerstenberg said.
- M&A: Clean Harbors disclosed the acquisition of a portion of Depot Connect International for $130 million. The deal includes five locations in Ohio, Louisiana and Texas that can provide waste handling, tank cleaning and railcar cleaning as well as some wastewater treatment and solidification services at two locations. The company plans to continue pursuing opportunities. Battles noted: “We hadn't been as successful in 2025, but we do see plenty of opportunities.”
- PFAS: In December, Clean Harbors signed a three-year, $110 million contract with Joint Base Pearl-Harbor Hickam in Hawai’i. The contract is an expansion of an existing water filtration partnership there, and is expected to add $15 to $30 million of additional earnings annually. Executives noted other drivers, particularly additional federal rules enacted in the National Defense Authorization Act and explored elsewhere, are tailwinds. This year, the company expects its PFAS work to increase by 20%.
- 2026 guidance: Clean Harbors expects reshoring, PFAS opportunities and a growing pipeline of remediation work to grow the business's bottom line in 2026. The company projects adjusted EBITDA for the full year to be between $1.20 billion and $1.26 billion and adjusted net income between $410 million and $461 million. Clean Harbors projects base oil prices will continue to decline in 2026, an ongoing headwind.
