Dive Brief:

• Interstate Waste Services has acquired New Jersey-based Filco Carting. Financial terms were not disclosed.
• Filco Carting services thousands of commercial and residential customers in New York City, including multiple large accounts, as well as municipal contracts in Paterson and Cresskill, New Jersey. The company has an estimated 100 employees and 40 vehicles.
• Filco also holds four commercial waste contracts in New York, including three zones and one citywide containerized waste contract. The company initially requested city approval for the transaction in July, according to information obtained via a public records request.

Dive Insight:

Filco, founded in 1910, started out collecting waste via horse-drawn cart and now touts itself as the longest-running independent waste company in New York City and the second-largest provider of containerized service.

CEO Domenic Monopoli said in a statement that "IWS shares our values and commitment to service, and I am confident that our legacy will continue to grow within this organization."

Monopoli, the fourth generation of family leaders, took sole ownership of the company in 2019. That same year the New York City Council passed a law to convert commercial waste collection from an open market system to one with designated zones that could only be serviced by city-awarded contracts. Filco worked to refresh its brand name with radio ads and other tactics, as well as investments in new vehicles, leading up to the bid award process. The company also considered reopening a former recycling facility in Brooklyn, but opted against it due to costs.

As the zone process was playing out Filco also applied for an A901 license to operate in New Jersey to expand its options. Filco landed a residential waste and recycling collection contract in Paterson in late 2023. This prompted legal action from the incumbent Suburban Disposal that was ultimately unsuccessful. The Paterson City Council has recently been debating whether to extend Filco’s contract through the end of 2026, as reported by TapInto Paterson. Filco also won a waste and recycling collection contract in the smaller borough of Cresskill, taking over for IWS, but it hasn’t won any other contracts in the state since then.

"We are thrilled to welcome the Filco team to the IWS family," said IWS CEO Mike DiBella in a statement. "Their history of being a family-owned operation, along with their outstanding reputation, made them a perfect fit to our organization as we continue on our growth trajectory.”

IWS, which operates under Action Environmental in New York City, has already made about a dozen local purchases since commercial waste contracts were awarded in early 2024, including a mix of full asset sales or select routes. The Filco purchase is its largest in the city so far and will set off ripple effects in the zone system.

The program set a 15-zone cap for any one company and Action was already at 14. It overlapped with Filco in two zones, Manhattan Southwest and Midtown North, as well as with the citywide containerized contract. Additionally, Filco had a contract in Midtown South where Action wasn’t awarded one. The shift to zone contracts hasn’t begun in any of these areas as the city is working through the transition incrementally.

Waste Connections’ acquisition of fellow awardee Royal Waste Services led to a similar situation. The company pulled out of one area to honor the 15-zone cap and then the city’s Department of Sanitation awarded new contracts to smaller companies in two zones to fill other gaps.

DSNY recently asked prior bidders if they were interested in being considered for new zones. The nine remaining companies that bid and haven’t sold to competitors confirmed they were. A recent report from the city comptroller’s office revealed the ranking of bidders in each zone and shows multiple active companies that could be beneficiaries of potential new contracts.

IWS has also been an active acquirer in other areas, following a 2023 recapitalization that involved investors Ares Management and Littlejohn & Co. Recent examples include Oak Ridge Waste & Recycling and North Atlantic Waste & Recycling in Connecticut; Marangi Disposal in New York; and Grand Sanitation Service, Pinto Service and Seaside Waste Services in New Jersey.