Conference Transcript - CLH 2026-06-09

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Great. Well, good afternoon, everybody. I'm Jerry Revich once again, and I'm thrilled to have with us the senior management team from Clean Harbors. Immediately to my left, we have Eric Dugas, chief financial officer, Carol Larson, EVP sales and sales management, and Jim Buckley, SVP investor relations. As you might have noticed, I said those two names in reverse order based on who's sitting on stage. Eric, Carol, Jim, thank you so much for joining us.

Eric Dugas, CFO

Thank you.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

So we're going to run the conversation in the fireside chat format. You know, as a starting point, Eric, looking at clean harbors over the past five years, their earnings growth has been really outstanding, 19% CAGR. What went right over that timeframe to enable that level of really strong, profitable growth?

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah, kind of a great introductory question there, Jerry. I want to thank everybody for kind of joining us today and learning more about the company. But when you look over the last five years, really strong performance, and I'd say there's been a couple of catalysts to be able to deliver that type of growth at the earnings level. I guess the first I would say is we are continuing each and every day to think about how we can drive more volumes into our network. And so when you think about clean harbors, you think about a company that handles, for the most part, hazardous waste, everything short of nuclear. We have over 100 physical sites with hard-to-replicate permits where we handle that waste. And so one of the things we're constantly trying to do is increase volumes and bring more waste into the system. When we do that, we're able to really leverage the network and drive business performance and margins and earnings power that you've talked about. So a couple of things, developing new lines of business. I think some regulatory changes that we've had in the retail side of things has really helped us grow that business line. You know, when you think about our core verticals, Jerry, with chemical and manufacturing, you know, those numbers from a macro perspective, and I'm sure we'll get into some more recent data, but those lines have been, you know, fairly flattish over the last couple of years. But we've still been able to grow through that, through increased volumes. Pricing strategies is something we spend a lot of time on, and Carol is instrumental with that in the sales team. So driving good pricing power, continuing to integrate. And the vertical integration, I think, is something that sets Clean Harbors apart for many of our competitors in that we can start with customers. We can be on site helping them test and handle their waste. We can then transport that waste to our disposal sites and ultimately dispose of it. So really, I'd say it's volume growth. It's margin expansion through pricing. sink. And then although 2025 was a little bit slower on the acquisition front, a long history continued to grow acquisitively as well as organically. Can we unpack, Eric, the point on

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

retail and the changes there that have been helpful to clean harbors? Yeah. When you think

Eric Dugas, CFO

about retail, you oftentimes don't think about hazardous waste. And so there were some interesting regulatory changes, you know, started in California and really kind of have grown across the retail space but took some uh put some regulations on the types of things that you you know fertilizers and things like that that often are in the retail space that can't just go into the dumpster and be handled through kind of the traditional solid waste means they actually have to be handled so when you think about retailers and the growing retail space and you think about some of those large retailers out there you know those are significant customers of ours today a lot of the returns, a lot of e-waste, things of that nature that we're handling. That's kind of new to the clean harbor space. But again, bringing those incremental volumes into an already established leverageable network is really helping us grow in an area that, again, people probably don't

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

think traditional hazardous waste. Very interesting. What proportion of revenue is it? I'm assuming

Eric Dugas, CFO

this is technical services based on the way you're describing it. It's still, Jerry, a relatively small piece of the business, about three to four percent, I think, is our recent figure on the retail waste, but, you know, really growing. I think there's also some other areas. We're starting to get into, you know, healthcare waste a little bit, and that's a growing area we're seeing volumes grow, but, you know, I'm hoping that, you know, in addition to these growth areas, I think more recently, we've seen some better large-scale economic indicators around ISM and things and maybe some of the chemical space picking up as well here that should be, you know,

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

very value accretive to clean arbors. And then you folks have been able to achieve really strong price ahead of costs over this five-year time period. You know, looking forward over the next five years, if we're in this room today and we've got another five years of 90% earnings cager, what would have to go right to get there? Can you drive margins another

Eric Dugas, CFO

another step change higher from here. Yeah, I guess, you know, I'd answer that question first by, you know, a few years ago, we put out a Vision 2027 roadmap. And kind of in that roadmap, we had, you know, our margins in our environmental services segment reaching, you know, roughly 26% by fiscal 27. Well, I'm happy to report that we reached that in 2025. And so we've hit that goal. To continue to drive those margins, we're going to continue to do a lot of the things that we've done. I've mentioned volumes a couple of times and continuing to sell more services to fill out our platform in all over 100 disposal sites. Jerry, you mentioned pricing. When I think about pricing and our pricing strategy and the trajectory we've been on, I think about many of the things that we've implemented over the last five or six years from a strategic perspective. So really looking at our entire customer base, looking at the services we provide them across our 50 lines of business looking at their current margins and core tiling those things and then really equipping equipping our our sales and operational folks with a strategy to kind of push pricing and and get the value that we deserve for the important services that we deliver through pricing we balance pricing across our lobs and make sure we're we're thinking about the total customer value long term and pricing accordingly but you know volumes pricing vertical integration, continuing to bring as much transportation, labor into our business and use our own internal people rather than going external for some of those things. And just speaking to the labor force for a moment, our ability to retain our folks here, our retention rate with our employees is at a near all-time high here. And that's something really important to us to keep our own employees. It increases safety. It increases production and efficiencies and, you know, leads into that margin. So current goals, we're trying to get that environmental services space to a 30% margin. You know, our current forecast has us, you know, at about 27% there. We'll finish this year, you know, but hoping to move beyond that, hit that 30% target, and then reset from there. 30 by 30? Could be 30 by 30. Yeah, there's, those are great ESPN flicks as well, but that could be a

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And in terms of the part of the business where you're seeing margin expansion, you know, looking back, really, even over a long time frame, you folks have done a great job getting industrial services margins higher. Is the next leg of margin upside for EES primarily from technical services, or can you continue to drive industrial and field services margins higher?

Eric Dugas, CFO

You know, I think it's going to come from kind of all four components of environmental services. So our tech services, our safety clean branch has been a great story. Field services, where we've been able to raise margins probably from the mid-teens to kind of the low to mid-20% range. And then industrial, I think we're beginning to see some cyclical signs of that business picking up. I think in the last few years, as that business has slowed down a little bit, we've done a lot of self-help items, labor management being one, cross-training employees being another across the industrial space. And that's an area that I think as that business picks up and revenues come back, you know, we should be able to see more margin. But, you know, going back to kind of tech services, Jerry, and the safety clean branch business, we're going to continue to, I think, see some great margin growth there. I think the demand remains strong. I think there's a lot of things that we're doing internally to drive margins. And then I think with a lot of the tailwinds we have, and I'm sure we'll get into some of those, but, you know, between improved manufacturing numbers, PFAS opportunities, and things of that nature. you know, more volumes into that network is going to drive margins.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And it sounds like you're seeing in the business the benefits from higher manufacturing numbers based on that comment, Eric?

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah, I think we're beginning to. I mean, I think early days, early days, you know, we saw the ISM figures come out last week or the week before, I think fourth or fifth month in a row where you saw kind of being in expansion mode. That certainly has not been the case over the last four or five years. So, you know, the way we view it is we've performed quite strong over the last four or five years in kind of in a space that's, you know, been a little bit of a gray area. And now, you know, you're starting to see some green shoots come up in our business and really excited about how we can perform and the earnings power that this business has in an environment with some expansion to it.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Very interesting. And then you also mentioned things are looking better in industrial services specifically. So, you know, last quarter, we're commiserating that when margins were low for refiners, they weren't spending any money. Now margins are too high for them to spend money and take downtime. Are they starting to take unplanned downtime or are they doing more work?

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah, Jerry, we have not in our forecast for 2026. We did not we did not build in kind of an improving market in this area in the back half. I think we're beginning to see signs of perhaps some pickup, you know, later this year, maybe into next. One of the reasons I feel that way and some of the intel we're getting from the businesses is a little bit of what past history has shown. And you kind of alluded a little bit to the Goldilocks syndrome that can exist in the industrial space where, you know, I think leading into 2026 here in the last few years, we've seen kind of that refinery space and chemical space, which are the largest verticals in our industrial services business really be kind of in a cost cutting mode and looking for areas to reduce spend and in some cases that means you know less maintenance and smaller turnarounds maybe some more pit stop turnarounds rather than doing a full turnaround in past cycles we've seen that type of behavior and a lot of times that leads into a period like i think we're seeing now where with cracks beds being where they are you know refineries in particular kind of manufacturing and producing all out and and i'd say the latest cycle you saw that is kind of when the world turned back on uh after covid we were in a period uh where these where these plants were running all out uh and then they get to a point where hey you know they can't they can't skip the maintenance they need to do the certain levels of maintenance and turnaround activity that is required for these multi-million dollar plants and you saw in the last cycle kind of the 2022 time frame you saw kind of the revenue industrial services revenue expand. And so, you know, we're looking at that potential and thinking that that history will repeat itself there. And so, you know, when you compare the period we're in now to a period from, you know, four years ago, you know, we're expecting and ultimately here that business to turn around, those revenues to return. The timing, is it later this year, early next year? You know, time will tell on that, but certainly, you know, you don't want to run these plants to a point where you see production issues or disruptions or a safety event, you know, and you really got to get in there and clean out those units appropriately.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And have we seen that start to happen onesies, twosies, any green shoots or no?

Eric Dugas, CFO

No, I think it's a little too early to tell. I think what those folks are focused on right now, they've kind of been in cost-cutting mode at this very moment. You know, they are focused on production. And like I said, especially the refineries. But ultimately, you know, they got to do the work. they got to do the maintenance work that's required i mean some of them are running to

Jim Buckley, Head of Investor Relations

upset you know you've seen there's been more refinery fires there's even been some chemical plant fires over the last six months because they're just running their plants hard and as as eric was saying for a good reason now versus before as you mentioned uh it was as a cost cutting and now they've got money and they're making money and so they don't want to bring it down they're making too much money but then sometimes the plant says i've got to come down

Carol Larson, Other

And when they do, it's a much shorter cycle. So they're being very, as Eric alluded to, pit stop. That's what he's indicating is that over the last year, the duration of a turnaround is reduced by about 33%. And then even over two years, it's about 50%. So it's much more intentional, I would say. But the good news for us, too, is if you are there doing the turnaround, you either come to the table with all of the things that may happen as they go into the turnaround, but then also looking to minimize the number of vendors has been a big area of focus, too. So how do you do more of the work while you're on site?

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

and so it sounds like other parts of industrial services are getting better the non-refining part

Eric Dugas, CFO

it sounds like is improving yeah and and i want to just maybe add too i mean what we've been talking about here is our industrial services business when you think about kind of an industrial waste in totality if these refineries or these chemical plants are now running at a higher level and not wanting to stop to do the turnaround it means more waste is being produced and we handle that waste kind of on our tech services side of the house. So when you talk about green shoots, Jerry, and seeing some pickup in manufacturing and industrial activity, which is good for us, you know, it's really good on the tech services side when these plants do turn around and need to do their, I should say, when they do turn around to do their turnarounds, you know, we'll see that on the industrial side. So, but the overall industrial landscape, again, I'll go back to kind of the ISM readings and things like that, you know, starting to see some green shoots and And it would be nice to see a period of expansion kind of hold on here. You know, that, among many other tailwinds to the business, I think are a good thing for Clean Harbors.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And, Carol, right before this meeting, we had the Republic team in here, and they were complementary of your team's pricing algorithm and what you folks have been able to do. Can you just share with us the Clean Harbors approach to pricing that's been really a big part of the margin improvement journey?

Carol Larson, Other

Yeah, I think Eric already alluded to it. It's certainly pricing with discipline, pricing with intent, regularity, looking across the business and looking into each of the customers, the industry, the response, the competitiveness. and what we can do as an organization to expand and cross-sell all lines of business. So we want to look at it from both sides of the house and really partner with our customers but certainly have the rigor around periodic, annualized price increases with rigor.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

So you get the customers used to a rhythm of annual price increases. That's a key part of the operations.

Carol Larson, Other

It is, and an understanding of the value, right? So the value proposition in any pricing conversation is critical and key to understand the difference between us and somebody else and what we bring to the table. And that goes on throughout the year.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And then when demand drops down, it sounds like you folks had a nice job of pivoting last year. Can you talk about how you folks operated? And I'm referring to when the overall activity levels slowed around maybe 2Q, 3Q last year for the industry. It sounds like you folks managed it reasonably well based on your results and what I'm hearing from peers.

Carol Larson, Other

Yeah. So, you know, you think about the various businesses and the demands of what we have and how many services we perform throughout the year. And so certainly there's going to be ebbs and flows in how you continue to look at the available opportunities in the marketplace. And so we certainly leaned into that.

Eric Dugas, CFO

I think, Jerry, you know, the ability for clean harbors to pivot when one vertical may be a little bit slower is one of the strengths of the company. when you think about our 50 yellow bees and the and the more than 300 000 customers that we provide service to i think what you're alluding to is you know as we saw kind of chemical volumes maybe kind of flattish uh you know we were able to turn on other things like health care like retail uh our field services organization you know if you think about that business and the acquisition that we did with hepico a few years ago really kind of nearly doubling the size of field service This business, Field Services, is a business where about half of those revenues are kind of routine tank cleanings and, you know, regular services. And about 50% is responding, emergency response to certain events that happen. You can have an event that's a few hundred thousand dollars. You can have an event that's tens of millions. But our ability to continue to grow that business, our ability to open new branches, our ability to build continued relationships with many of the customers that we handle from a tech services or a safety clean branch side and get into their emergency response plan so that we can respond when something bad happens. You know, we can fill in the gaps with that business. And, you know, there's been some large events that we've responded to over the last year that has kind of helped fill in the gaps. So at Clean Harbors, you know, we you know, a few years ago, if I was up here, we would talk about kind of an eight cylinder engine. And, you know, our goal is to make sure at least six or seven of those are operating at all times. And that really carries the wind in our sails. Now, a larger business, six billion dollars in revenue, 25,000 people. We talk about it as a 12 piston or 12 cylinder engine. And, you know, we believe that kind of 10 or 11 of those are operating right now. And we can pivot from from piston to piston as need be. And that's why we've been able to deliver, you know, great growth over the last five years, even in difficult times and continue to see great margin expansion. And that's what that's really what we want to focus on is continuing to grow revenue top line and get more dollars to the bottom line through the margin.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Super. Eric, you touched on the safety clean branch business. And so Jim and I had a conversation about that about a quarter ago. Can you just talk about how you folks have been able to drive margins higher by driving higher route density? And it sounds like you folks feel like there's room to drive that higher. Can we just talk about, one, where the margins are now, how far they've come, and what's driven just for a truck-based business to have the type of margins that we're about to talk about in a minute is just really impressive. So we'd love to unpack that.

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah, sure. So I'll start maybe just by stepping back in a few sentences about the business, Jerry. And I like to start there because I think it is a part of our business that's a little bit underappreciated sometimes when you think about what we've been able to do in that business and i'd start off by saying that you know the last three four or five years we've seen this business grow at a consistent kind of seven percent plus top line growth rate how are we doing that think about all the small and medium-sized businesses out there that that you know produce some level of hazardous waste they got to get rid of that and so our safety clean branch business has become very much a subscription-based model where we're going out on a regular basis to these businesses and we are collecting their containerized waste, often in 55-gallon drums. We are providing them with parts washer services. We are doing vac services. And it's really kind of a one-stop shop where we can do a lot of things. It's non-discretionary spend in a lot of cases, and it's a relatively small piece of the overall spending, but it's very, very important services. Complimentary to that, we've done a great job on the safety clean branch side of holding on to our drivers. The drivers are kind of the heartbeat of the business. They're in box trucks and things alike, and they're going out and making five or six or seven stops a day. Through the last five or six years, holding on to those people, those people will be more efficient. They're more efficient with how they do their jobs. They get to know the customers, and they're able to cross sell, and we've also introduced We've introduced incentive programs that provide these drivers with an opportunity during their day to do some sales prospecting, to stop, to introduce themselves, to maybe pick up another drum of waste. And when you can get that one incremental drum or two incremental drums or an additional service on that same route with the same driver and the same truck, all that revenue is going to drop straight to the bottom line, except for maybe a little of that incentive cookie that we're going to give the driver. So those types of things, holding on to our people, expanding that platform, you know, that's what's driven that safety clean branch business to, you know, 7% almost every quarter, every year growth rate. And then when you think about the volume pulling in there and each additional drum, you know, we're looking at margins in that business. you know, overall environmental services I mentioned earlier, 26%. These margins are in the 30% plus neighborhood and more volume into that leverageable network, feeding the beast. You know, we believe that we can continue to grow this business. You know, I think in some cases, in many cases, we're taking market share as well as we continue to build this business in certain geographies and kind of leverage some of our footprint in the TS space and bring SK trucks into that area as well so just really a great business very accretive from a cash flow perspective as well and really good kind of pricing power where these customers as long as we're providing great service and they know their drivers and they know we're going to show up you know we can we can consistently price them you know at inflation or above and the safety and the safety

Jim Buckley, Head of Investor Relations

clean branches really feed so much of the network only about 30 percent of the drums they collect are for incineration so it's going to landfills it's going to salt and recycling it's going to wastewater. And as we do these smart acquisitions, like the Terranova one we recently did that add solidification permits and water discharge permits, and you lay that into our network, you know, the returns are terrific. And it's why that growing monster from the safety clean branch that just keeps feeding everything is so important to us. But, you know, when we get in meetings with you folks, it's typically, let's talk about incinerators, let's talk about the spread business, and everyone kind of overlooks the beauty of the safety clean branch business.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Well, and because it's tough to imagine that truck-based business, instead of making 10% margins, making over 30% margins, it was 10% margins five years ago, was it not? Somewhere in that range. How long have you been operating at this level of performance?

Eric Dugas, CFO

I mean, on the safety clean branch side, we've always had, you know, they haven't been 10% margins. They were healthier than that. But certainly each and every year, we're expanding margins kind of in that 50, 60 basis point area across Safety Clean Branch and just a really highly accretive business. Again, through volume growth, taking market share, continuing to deliver great service and then pricing accordingly.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

So what's the moat? Because, you know, if you're making 30 percent margins and you've got two and a half capital turns, you know, obviously you're gaining share. So clearly the moat is there. Help us understand that a little bit more.

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah. When you talk about moat, and the business has a very strong moat, the incinerators, as Jim just mentioned, a lot of times we talk about the incinerators. There's a moat there. But when you think about, again, we are picking up hazardous waste, even on the safety clean branch side. That safety clean branch side, you have to have special permits to be able to handle that waste. And that's where the moat is, to be able to collect that hazardous waste, bring it to one of our TSDFs. These are kind of stops along the way to ultimate disposal where we can store hazardous waste. We can repackage. We do some treating there. We try to pull some things out that we can recycle. But having those permits, which are very difficult to obtain, green fielding permits like that is very difficult. That kind of creates the moat that is utilized kind of across that waste collection business. And so, you know, again, incinerators is probably the biggest moat, but the collection being able to store and treat hazardous waste along the way before it gets to its end disposal is almost just as valuable.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And just for my reference, where would margins have been five years ago with 25 instead of 30 or was it?

Eric Dugas, CFO

You know, you'd think about this margin, you know, five years ago, probably in the mid to high 20 percent. And then over the last five years, kind of increasing margins in this space, you know, 600, 700 points in the safety clean branch. You know, but I like to take a kind of a step back and, again, look at the environmental services segment in totality. So tech services, safety clean branch that we've just spent the last few minutes speaking about, field services and industrial services. If you look at that as a combined environmental services segment, and you go back in time, Jerry, I'll go way back. you look at nine years ago you know we've expanded margins again last year landing at about 26 percent we've expanded margins over the last nine years by 850 basis points we've expanded margins in that business over the last five uh about 460 basis points and so just a really good story by continuing to gain traction with volumes you know price strategically and really vertically

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

integrate all aspects of those businesses. Now, before we talk about the incineration business, the M&A part of the Clean Harbor story has been really additive. You know, you folks have generally bought assets 11 times, EBITDA, Post Synergy is eight times EBITDA and increased densification. What's the pipeline look like from here? How much runway do you have to do, continued runway and then you know the lack of activity in 25 just talk about was that uh issue of not enough um companies coming to market or other moving pieces yeah great question i'd start

Eric Dugas, CFO

off with you know the pipeline for acquisitions kind of in our core space we believe is is remains quite strong uh even you know recently we're seeing a lot of opportunities come our way you know viewing a lot of books kind of on a weekly basis uh we've gotten two acquisitions kind of over the goal line. In 2026, they fit nicely kind of into our tech services and field services space. So I think there's still quite a runway, both with tuck-ins of the size of the recent acquisitions and larger. I think there's plenty of things kind of in our core space. You know, if I look back to 2025, Jerry, still, I think the pipeline quite busy. Last year, you know, we were very active, looked at a lot of things. They were just some of the things we looked at got to a point where you know when we when we look at acquisitions they need to fit you know strategically operationally culturally and financially and and i think some of the opportunities last year from a financial standpoint you know got a little higher than than we would like and probably couldn't check that box but we pivoted uh you know we introduced some organic projects we we from a capital allocation perspective we allocated more to share repurchases so return value to shareholders that way but you know framing back to the acquisitions you know i think you look back at the 45-year history of the company acquisitive growth has been a real engine for us and i think it will continue to be in the future and i think there's plenty of things that

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

we can do kind of in our core swim lanes so and and in terms of uh in 2025 just the timing of assets coming to market maybe you didn't like or were you close on deals can you give us

Eric Dugas, CFO

Well, we were definitely close on deals. As I said, I think, you know, for one reason or another, it kind of got down the end, and, you know, we're outbid by the winners. You know, I think one of the things, one of the core tenets of Clean Harbors is we're going to be really responsible with our capital. We're going to look at returns. We're going to be strict at certain levels and stay within those levels that we deem are appropriate based on the assets we're getting. And, you know, I think I'm pretty proud of the team for, you know, the majority and, you know, strength to kind of, you know, get to a point and say, okay, we're not going to go above this. And that's what we saw in 2025. But ecstatic about the two that we've done this year, again, and I think, again, you look at Terranova, you know, great acquisition kind of based in the Carolinas, brings more volume into our network. And like I said, I think there's more opportunities to kind of bring things into that core space going forward.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And to shift gears to talk about incinerators, so Kimball, you folks have laid out progress that's tracking pretty close to plan. As you folks have brought that online, to what extent has that driven additional conversations for you folks with other customers that might be reaching the decision of invest or outsource on their incinerators? Is there a potential that we're sitting here a year from now and we're talking about Kimball 2.0?

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah, I think what you're probably alluding to, Jerry, is just another tailwind we think that we see in the business in terms of captive incineration. And there's companies out there that have captive incinerators. These are incinerators where they can burn their waste. And there's been a movement to close some of these. And I think you're referring to the possibility that more of these will close and send their waste streams to clean harbors. A few years ago, 3M was a company that did that with their captive incinerator, and we were the beneficiary of those waste streams. I'd say that's still a tailwind for us. It's still an opportunity as we move forward. We still have discussions and many of the captive operators are customers of ours today. They send us their waste streams that they can't handle in their captives or when they're in turnaround. And so I think the possibility is real here. I know it's real that over time, I think you'll continue to have these examples of those waste streams moving into the commercial space. As I said, we keep active contact. We have a gentleman that's in charge of keeping that relationship going. We talk about in discussions with those captives about how we can save them operating costs. We can save them capital expenditures. You know, we can handle some of the more complex waste streams that are coming out of some of those factories and manufacturing sites. So, you know, I think it's definitely a tailwind. The timing is what's a little bit of a question mark. But, you know, between captives, between kind of reshoring, nearshoring, between kind of improved economic environment overall, PFAS, which we really haven't talked about, but that opportunity also kind of picking up steam and growing at rates that are exceeding our expectations coming into the year, all those things will cause us to consider in the future, hey, another new incinerator or, you know, increasing throughput through some of our current kilns. So really an exciting time, lots of tailwinds. And I'd say that, you know, when the time is right, we will strongly entertain kind of another facility.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And any scenario where you folks could step in and take over a captive incinerator or are these just two old assets that are too inefficient for the most part?

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah, it gets tricky. I think the two biggest concerns are the technology and there's some upgrade. But also a lot of these captives are on site. They're in the middle of a production area, if you will. And certainly if we kind of took one over, we'd want to commercialize it. So it turns into a permit modification. But just the ability to get in and out of these sites with customer waste makes it a little tricky.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And can we double-click on PFAS tracking ahead of expectations? Please say more.

Eric Dugas, CFO

Yeah, I'd love to turn it over to Carol as head of sales, but I will say kind of the expectations around PFAS are kind of growing by the day internally, and we're really excited about it.

Carol Larson, Other

Yeah, so I would say with our total PFAS solution, so we have an end-to-end solution, that coupled with our recent publication of disposal recommendations has garnered a lot of interest and response from customers out there, from both an inquiry, though, as well as action. And so when you think about in today's environment, emergency response, there are emergency responses that we are a part of. UPS recently being one of them, the plane that goes down. We are on site and AFFF is released to put out the flame and therefore we are in a PFAS situation where people will immediately need to respond to that. So there are those types of opportunities, but also as we think about water filtration and remediation, where we're seeing a lot of progress and movement right now, there's just a plethora of momentum. And if you listen to the experts, a TAM of potentially 100 to 300 billion, which is a large market, it's just really a matter of mobilizing folks to act today and to just continue to have those conversations. So I would say the pipeline is extraordinarily strong, and we are really excited about our unique position to have an end-to-end solution.

Jim Buckley, Head of Investor Relations

PFAS is being driven by regulation, litigation, and even public relations. It's hard to go more than a few days without reading about Forever Chemicals in the news.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

And what's the revenue contribution this year, expectations for next year?

Eric Dugas, CFO

So we came into the year thinking that, you know, building upon the $120 million that we had in PFAS revenue in 2025, we thought, you know, 20% growth rate would be appropriate. As we sit here kind of through Q1 and halfway through Q2, I think we're seeing more opportunity than we had anticipated. And I would expect the growth rate around PFAS to be greater than that. I think to Jim's point, you're just seeing a lot of people and a lot of companies, you know, when there's a PFAS hit, they want to deal with it right away so i think we're excited near term with some of the opportunities that are coming our way but also long term just a huge opportunity for clean harbors and you know we're in the catbird seat when you think about that total pfas solution and everything we have

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

in place today and the 120 million what's the mix of that within incinerators versus collection

Eric Dugas, CFO

versus emergency response what roughly yeah i'd say roughly you know a third of that is probably filtration maybe a little bit more a third of that is kind of er response uh and maybe the rest of it is as releases happen i think early days on incineration i think uh many of us believe and and we believe that that will be the best long-term solution certainly for high concentrations of of pfas um so i i think that incineration outlet will be something that grows over time you know it's great that incineration has been recognized as as one of the the most effective ways to get rid of PFAS.

Jerry Revich, Analyst — Goldman Sachs

Super. Thank you. Please join me in thanking Eric, Carol, and Jim for coming out. Appreciate your time. Thank you.