There has been little change in the top tier of businesses leading the global ranking of the largest waste management companies. The French environmental services group Veolia remains in first place at the top of the leader board with annual revenue of more than €33bn in its waste and water divisions in 2025.
Growth in waste management activities offset declines in the water/wastewater segment, leaving overall revenue in these areas at the same level as in 2023, the year which served as the basis for the previous assessment.
That is likely to change over the next few years, given the acquisition of the US hazardous waste specialist Clean Earth Environmental Solutions agreed last November. The takeover is expected to provide new revenue momentum for Veolia’s waste division. According to its parent company Enviri, Clean Earth generated revenue of $975m (approximately €879m) in 2025. Completion of the transaction is expected in the middle of this year.
WM returns to the European market
The US-based Waste Management (WM) continues to rank second by revenue. The company recorded a significant increase in revenue following the acquisition of medical waste specialist Stericycle in early November 2024. The transaction raised WM’s annual revenue from $22bn in 2024 to $25.2bn in the following financial year.
Through the acquisition, the company – whose activities had been focused on North America for more than twenty years – also re-established a presence in Europe. The former Stericycle group is active in the clinical waste management markets in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Its subsidiary Shred-it is also active in document destruction in both these countries as well as in the Benelux region, Germany and France. According to WM’s annual report, total European operations contributed $326m (approximately €277m) in revenue in 2025.
The third-largest company in the ranking, Republic Services, remains active exclusively in the United States and Canada. Last year, it generated revenue of $16.6bn, equivalent to around €14.1bn.
Remondis in fourth place
In fourth place is Remondis, Germany’s largest waste management company. The subsidiary of the family-owned Rethmann Group reported revenue of €13.2bn in 2024. Financial results for 2025 have not yet been published.
In recent years, Remondis has acquired numerous small and medium-sized companies in the waste management and recycling sector. Its strong market positions in certain segments have now brought the group under closer antitrust scrutiny in Germany.
The company is also increasingly pursuing acquisitions outside Germany or involving waste-adjacent activities such as industrial cleaning. In January, for example, it agreed to acquire a stake in the Austrian waste management group Saubermacher. Outside Europe, Remondis is also active in North Africa, Asia and Australia. Neither the company nor its parent group publish revenue figures broken down by region or business segment.
Suez: almost €6bn in waste division revenue
The French environmental group Suez remains in fifth place in the ranking. Annual revenue in the waste and recycling segment reached €5.9bn last year, while the water/wastewater business contributed €2.9bn.
The company’s waste management activities continue to be largely concentrated in France and the UK, where Suez acquired two regional operators in 2023. Last year, the group acquired a majority stake in the Italian company Ecosistem, which specialises in industrial and commercial waste. Through its water business, Suez is also present in other European countries, North America and the Asia-Pacific region.
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In sixth place is Waste Connections, which operates in the United States and six Canadian provinces and focuses on non-hazardous waste. The company generated revenue of $9.5bn last year, equivalent to around €8.0bn, and completed 19 acquisitions with a total value of nearly $1bn. According to its previous annual report, Waste Connections had recorded "record acquisition activity" in the prior year, with 24 transactions totalling $2.2bn.
The Spanish group FCC has grown both organically and through acquisitions over the past two years and ranks seventh in the current list. Its waste management activities generated revenue of €4.7bn in 2025, to which the water/wastewater segment contributed €1.8bn.
FCC strengthens US and UK business
In 2024, the company expanded its presence in the United Kingdom by acquiring the UK waste management operations belonging to competitor Urbaser. It also entered the French market through a smaller acquisition. In addition to its home market of Spain, FCC’s waste division operates in Portugal and seven central and eastern European countries.
The Spanish group has continued to expand its activities in the United States, where FCC ranked among the 15 largest waste management companies last year, according to its own account. While its focus in the US market is on collection and sorting, the company entered the waste-to-energy sector in 2024 with the acquisition of the South Broward waste-to-energy plant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Reduced revenue for GFL Environmental
The Canadian waste management company GFL Environmental ranks eighth in 2025. The company, which also operates in 18 US states, generated revenue of CAD6.6bn (around €4.1bn) in 2025, compared with CAD7.9bn a year earlier.
Effective 1 March 2025, GFL sold a 65 per cent stake in its environmental services division, which bundles activities in soil remediation and liquid waste. The new majority owners are the financial investors Apollo and BC Partners. At the time, GFL Environmental announced that it would use a portion of the proceeds to reduce debt and a portion to fund new acquisitions in the non-hazardous waste segment.
In mid-April, the group announced one such acquisition, the planned purchase of Secure Waste Infrastructure in a cash and shares deal which assigns an enterprise value of CAD6.4bn to the company. Secure is active particularly in Western Canada and North Dakota in the US and specialises in the management of oilfield and industrial waste. In 2025, the company posted net income of CAD123m on CAD1.47bn in revenues. The transaction must still be approved by the Canadians courts and regulators as well as by Secure's shareholders. It is expected to close in the second half of 2026.
Prezero and Paprec in ninth and tenth place
In ninth place is the waste management company Prezero, which belongs to Germany’s Schwarz Group, the parent company of the discount grocery chain Lidl and the supermarket chain Kaufland. Prezero reports revenue of €3.9bn for the 2023/24 financial year in its sustainability report, while a mandatory financial filing in the German Federal Gazette put it at €3.34bn. Figures for the following year have not yet been published.
The company went through a period of rapid acquisitive growth between 2018 and 2021. The transactions completed during that period included Prezero's purchase of Suez’s operations in Germany and four other European countries as well as its takeover of the Spanish waste management company Cespa. Prezero now reports that it operates in ten countries.
Tenth place in the ranking is held by the French Paprec Group, which reported revenue of €3.5bn last year. Historically, the family-controlled company focused on recycling and waste management activities in its home market of France. However, in 2021, Paprec entered the waste-to-energy sector through acquisitions of plant construction and maintenance activities for waste incineration and biomass plants from Tiru/Dalkia Wastenergy, CNIM and Inova Operations. The share of these activities in 2025 revenue was not disclosed.
The revenue figures cited are drawn from annual reports and company statements. In some cases, they also include revenue from adjacent activities such as street cleaning and industrial services. The business mix of the individual companies also varies significantly.
