Dive Brief:
- Officials in Lawrence, Kansas, on Tuesday approved the sale of the Hamm Sanitary Landfill and MRF to a Republic Services subsidiary. The vote follows a previous approval from Douglas County, both of which were necessary due to collection and disposal contracts the jurisdictions had with the facilities.
- The assets would be assumed by an Allied Waste Systems subsidiary owned by Republic Services, which declined to comment on the deal.
- Republic’s website lists several service areas in Eastern Kansas near the landfill, including Kansas City and the Overland Park suburb. The landfill is about 40 miles west of Kansas City.
Dive Insight:
Perry, Kansas-based Hamm Cos., which also quarries and produces construction aggregates, has operated the landfill for decades. The company was founded in 1954 and became part of the Summit Materials Group in 2009, Lawrence Business Magazine reported.
Paperwork filed with Douglas County includes a 1983 agreement that notes a tonnage fee that would be used to maintain a landfill access road, as well as a 1992 disposal agreement. Lawrence, the county seat, was also a party to those agreements.
The landfill accepts municipal solid waste from both Kansas and Missouri, and C&D and certain special waste streams from within Kansas. In 2023, the most recent full year for which data is available, the landfill collected 511,681 tons of waste, according to Kansas state permit data. The city's contract for landfill services was most recently updated in 2019, and its recycling services agreement was most recently updated in 2022, the Lawrence Journal-World reported.
In 2023, Hamm agreed to pay a $4,206 civil penalty and spend approximately $30,000 to monitor landfill air emissions following an investigation by the U.S. EPA. The agency alleged Clean Air Act violations after it inspected the facility in March 2022. As part of the agreement, Hamm became the first landfill in the country to agree to use drones to monitor its landfill cover for methane leaks as part of a federal settlement.
Hamm won its recycling collection contract from Lawrence in 2013 and began operating the material recovery facility in 2015. The MRF can process up 10 ton tons of single stream recycling material per hour, according to the company’s website. The system was the first built by Stadler in the United States, according to news reports at the time.
Hamm sent a letter to local officials on Dec. 10 requesting approval to sell the landfill and MRF. The company did not respond to a request for comment about its future waste plans. On its website, it also lists roll-off services and transfer stations as part of its waste services, but it's unclear if those were included in the deal with Republic.
Republic Services declined to comment on the deal. The company spent more than $1 billion on acquisitions last year across both industrial services and traditional municipal solid waste and recycling.
CEO Jon Vander Ark previously told analysts that he expected the company to start out 2026 “strong” on M&A. Republic Services scheduled its fourth quarter and full-year 2025 earnings call for Feb. 17.
