¡¡¡¡SEATTLE, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Waste Management, North America''s largest provider of waste and environmental services, announced four environmental initiatives to double renewable energy production, triple recycling volumes, improve fleet fuel efficiency by 15 percent and reduce emissions by 15 percent and preserve and restore wildlife habitat across North America.

    The initiatives were unveiled by Waste Management''s chief executive officer, David P. Steiner, at the World Business Forum in New York on Oct. 11, 2007. The initiatives have important impacts in King County and the Pacific Northwest where Waste Management provides solid waste and recycling services to more than 400,000 customers.

    By early spring of 2008, Waste Management of the Pacific Northwest will be producing 2 megawatts of renewable energy from the Columbia Ridge Landfill in Arlington, Oregon -- or enough power for 2,000 households. Columbia Ridge provides disposal services for the municipalities throughout the Northwest, including the cities of Seattle and Portland, Oregon. Together with other landfill gas to energy and waste to energy projects across North America, the company expects to produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 2 million homes, more than double energy that it currently provides.

    Also at Columbia Ridge Landfill, 67 windmills are generating enough renewable power for 30,000 homes as the result of a leasing agreement with Leaning Juniper Wind Power, LLC, a subsidiary of PPM Energy and permitting is underway to add another 40 windmills.

    Waste Management''s state-of-the-art recycling center in Woodinville now processes 170,000 tons of recyclables, from more than 250,000 households in King and Snohomish County. Ensuring that these commodities are recycled and not disposed of in a landfill is equivalent to a total greenhouse gas reduction of over 519 metric tons of Carbon Dioxide Equivalent. Waste Management currently manages 8 million tons of recyclables throughout North America and plans to process more than 20 million tons by 2020.

    Waste Management facilities serving parts of King and Snohomish Counties now offset a portion of their electricity usage through participation in green power programs offered by Seattle City Light and Puget Sound Energy.

    In the Pacific Northwest, the company also is continuing programs to: * Expand its fleet of trucks fueled by low-emission biodiesel; * Test innovative new hybrid garbage and recycling collection trucks; * Work toward the commercialization of new technologies to convert recovered landfill gas into alternative transportation fuels such as liquefied natural gas and synthetic diesel * Assist businesses in recycling materials such as food waste and construction and demolition waste, as well as special wastes such as fluorescent lamps and E-Waste.

    "Waste Management is taking bold steps to improve the environment in partnership with our suppliers, regulatory agencies, and environmental groups," said Duane Woods, Senior Vice President for Waste Management''s Western Group. "Our focus is on low carbon, low emission and high performance technologies that can meet our tough operational demands. Working closely with our municipal customers, we are confident we can increase recycling, improve operational efficiencies and capture more renewable energy from waste residuals."

    A History of Environmental Leadership

    Waste Management has pioneered environmentally sustainable solutions to waste needs. In addition to being North America''s largest recycler, the company is a leader in waste based energy technologies. As a result of its efforts to date, Waste Management has achieved the following environmental progress:

    * Waste Management supplies enough waste based energy to replace over 14 million barrels of oil per year. * In 2006 alone, Waste Management recycled enough paper to save 41 million trees. * Waste Management''s landfills provide more than 17,000 acres of protected wildlife habitat - the Wildlife Habitat Council has certified 24 of these sites.

    About Waste Management

    Waste Management, based in Houston, Texas, is the leading provider of comprehensive waste management services in North America. Our subsidiaries provide collection, transfer, recycling and resource recovery, and disposal services. We are also a leading developer, operator and owner of waste-to-energy and landfill gas-to-energy facilities in the United States. Our customers include residential, commercial, industrial, and municipal customers throughout North America.

    More information about how Waste Management Thinks Green? can be found at http://www.wm.com/wm/thinkgreen.

    The Company, from time to time, provides estimates of financial and other data, comments on expectations relating to future periods and makes statements of opinion, view or belief about current and future events. Statements relating to future events and performance are "forward-looking statements." The forward-looking statements that the Company makes are the Company''s expectations, opinion, view or belief at the point in time of issuance but may change at some future point in time. By issuing estimates or making statements based on current expectations, opinions, views or beliefs, the Company has no obligation, and is not undertaking any obligation, to update such estimates or statements or to provide any other information relating to such estimates or statements. Outlined below are some of the risks that the Company faces and that could affect our financial statements for 2007 and beyond and that could cause actual results to be materially different from those that may be set forth in forward-looking statements made by the Company. However, they are not the only risks that the Company faces. There may be additional risks that we do not presently know or that we currently believe are immaterial which could also impair our business. We caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates. The following are some of the risks that we face:

    * competition may negatively affect our profitability or cash flows, our price increases may have negative effects on volumes and price roll- backs and lower than average pricing to retain and attract customers may negatively affect our yield on base business; * we may be unable to maintain or expand margins if we are unable to control costs; * we may not be able to successfully execute or continue our operational or other margin improvement plans and programs, including pricing increases; passing on increased costs to our customers; reducing costs due to our operational improvement programs; and divesting under- performing assets and purchasing accretive businesses, any of which could negatively affect our revenues and margins; * weather conditions cause our quarter-to-quarter results to fluctuate, and extremely harsh weather or natural disasters may cause us to temporarily shut down operations; * inflation and resulting higher interest rates as well as other general and local economic conditions may negatively affect the volumes of waste generated, our financing costs and other expenses; * possible changes in our estimates of site remediation requirements, final capping, closure and post-closure obligations, compliance and regulatory developments may increase our expenses; * regulations, including regulations to limit greenhouse gas emissions, may negatively impact our business by, among other things, restricting our operations, increasing costs of operations or requiring additional capital expenditures; * if we are unable to obtain and maintain permits needed to open, operate, and/or expand our facilities, our results of operations will be negatively impacted; * limitations or bans on disposal or transportation of out-of-state or cross-border waste or certain categories of waste can increase our expenses and reduce our revenues; * fuel price increases or fuel supply shortages may increase our expenses, including our tax expense if Section 45K credits are phased out due to continued high crude oil prices, or restrict our ability to operate; * increased costs to obtain financial assurance or the inadequacy of our insurance coverages could negatively impact our liquidity and increase our liabilities; * possible charges as a result of shut-down operations, uncompleted development or expansion projects or other events may negatively affect earnings; * fluctuating commodity prices may have negative effects on our operating revenues and expenses; * trends requiring recycling, waste reduction at the source and prohibiting the disposal of certain types of wastes could have negative effects on volumes of waste going to landfills and waste-to-energy facilities; * efforts by labor unions to organize our employees may increase operating expenses and we may be unable to negotiate acceptable collective bargaining agreements with those who have been chosen to be represented by unions, which could lead to union-initiated work stoppages, including strikes, which could adversely affect our results of operations and cash flows; * negative outcomes of litigation or threatened litigation or governmental proceedings may increase our costs, limit our ability to conduct or expand our operations, or limit our ability to execute our business plans and strategies; problems with the operation of our current information technology or the development and deployment of new information systems may decrease our efficiencies and increase our \ costs to operate; * the adoption of new accounting standards or interpretations may cause fluctuations in reported quarterly results of operations or adversely impact our reported results of operations; and * we may reduce or eliminate our dividend or share repurchase program or we may need to raise additional capital if cash flows are less than we expect or capital expenditures are more than we expect, and we may not be able to obtain any needed capital on acceptable terms.

    Additional information regarding these and/or other factors that could materially affect results and the accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained herein may be found in Part I, Item 1 of the Company''s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2006.

    Source: Waste Management
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