Latest news with #environmentalsolutions
Associated Press
04-08-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
LRS Acquires GHW to Expand Footprint in Indianapolis Market
ROSEMONT, Ill., Aug. 4, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- LRS, one of the nation's leading independent waste diversion, recycling, and environmental solutions providers, today announced the acquisition of GHW, a locally owned and operated waste company based in Indianapolis. The acquisition marks a strategic expansion into the Indianapolis market, enhancing LRS's commercial and industrial service capabilities while supporting the company's long-term growth plan. 'GHW has built a strong reputation with a loyal customer base in a market that is primed for growth,' said Matt Spencer, Chief Executive Officer of LRS. 'Bringing GHW into the LRS family allows us to expand our Midwest footprint while maintaining the local, customer-focused service that GHW is known for. This is a best-in-class ownership group backed by a hardworking, high-integrity team, and we're excited to welcome them to LRS.' GHW will continue operating under its existing brand during the transition period. Customers may begin to see LRS-branded containers and equipment in the area, but the local GHW team, leadership, and service model will remain in place. LRS is committed to maintaining continuity while supporting the team with additional resources and long-term growth opportunities. 'We're excited about the opportunity to join forces with LRS,' said Kevin Walbridge, speaking on behalf of GHW partners Jim Gamage, Troy Hintze, and himself. 'This partnership provides added resources and capabilities for our customers and employees, while preserving the values and service standards that have defined GHW.' The acquisition supports LRS's broader strategic plan to grow its presence in key Midwest markets and diversify its service offerings. Indianapolis represents one of the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the region, with strong economic indicators and expanding infrastructure investment. LRS will continue to prioritize service continuity, operational safety, and employee opportunity throughout the integration process. The GHW team, including drivers, supervisors, and support staff, will remain in place. About LRS LRS is among the nation's leading independent waste diversion, recycling and portable services providers. Since 2013, LRS has specialized in delivering an exceptional customer experience for millions of residential and commercial customers across seven states: Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Kansas, Arkansas. Diversified and growing, LRS also offers affordable roll-off container services, C&D recycling and portable restroom rentals. LRS owns and operates more than 70 facilities and thrives on the passion of nearly 2,300 full-time employees. LRS has earned numerous accolades for its success, including being named in Crain's Chicago Business' Fast 50, NABR's Best and Brightest lists across the Midwest, and receiving the NWRA Facility of the Year award for its newest MRF, The Exchange. The company provides safe, innovative, sustainability-driven services to clean and beautify the cities, neighborhoods, and communities it serves. To learn more visit MEDIA CONTACT: Michelle McConnaughey [email protected] View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE LRS
The Guardian
04-08-2025
- General
- The Guardian
This New York City island was once a military base. Now it's becoming a climate solutions hub
Between lower Manhattan's iconic skyscrapers and Brooklyn's buzzing waterfront lies Governors Island, a 172-acre island in New York Harbor only accessible by ferry, seen here in July. Originally used by the Lenape tribe for seasonal hunting and fishing, Governors Island later became a military outpost and army headquarters before being sold to New York City and the state. It was officially opened to the public in 2005. With its expansive green lawns, panoramic views, food vendors, and rotating art installations, the island now attracts nearly a million visitors each year. More recently, it has evolved into an educational hub and incubator for solutions to facing the city's climate and environmental challenges. Through a pilot program headed by the Trust for Governor's Island, innovators and companies receive funding and space to launch their ideas and test them in the real world. Projects include Seaweed City, a non-profit that started in Newtown Creek in 2021 with the goal of connecting communities to local waterways by involving them in the growing and harvesting of kelp, while exploring its potential for innovative uses. Shanjana Mahmud (right), 41, Founder and Co-executive director of Seaweed City, seen here with volunteers pulling kelp from their recent harvest to the shore. Seaweeds like kelp, shown here being rinsed by volunteers, offer a nature-based solution to water quality challenges. They help purify the water and create vital marine habitats. 'It's remarkable how the default solutions for improving the city's waterways are often energy-intensive, engineered, and not conducive to marine life,' said Mahmud. 'By contrast, seaweed restoration supports biodiversity in a natural and sustainable way.' 'It's been amazing doing something hands-on outside of an academic setting,' said Manal Bawazir, 27, a biology major and first-time volunteer seen here arranging the kelp to dry which will then be preserved on site and ready to be processed. The harvested seaweeds can then be processed into soil amendment and biomaterials. Seaweed City aims to establish seaweed gardens across all five boroughs in collaboration with local community organizations. With full-time jobs in addition to their work at Seaweed City, Mahmud and partner Luke Eddins identified their main challenge as expanding their organizational capacity as well as securing sustainable funding to support full-time staff. The island also hosts long-term tenants working on environmental solutions, such as the Billion Oyster Project, which launched in 2014, with the goal of restoring one billion oysters in New York Harbor by 2035 while engaging the community. Alana Norwood-Hollis visited Governor's Island for the first time from Brooklyn to volunteer with the oyster project on a recent day in July. 'I wanted to volunteer, and I'm happy I started here,' she said. Built by staff and volunteers, these reef balls will be installed in the harbor at multiple restoration sites to encourage oyster larvae attachment. A healthy oyster population can improve water quality, while the reefs serve as a natural habitat for marine life and a natural defense against erosion and sea level rise. So far, they've reintroduced 150 million oysters into the water. Photograph: Thalia Juarez/The Guardian On a recent July morning, volunteers helped transfer oyster shells through a tumbler that cleans and sorts the shells onto palettes, which are then placed in the hatchery for oyster incubation. The oysters come from restaurants across the city and are left for a year to be 'cleaned' by sunshine, bugs, rain and other natural processes before oyster larvae are introduced. Photograph: Thalia Juarez/The Guardian Other long-term tenants include an urban composting center by Earth Matters, a nonprofit. As part of the island's zero waste mission, the facility processes all of the food scraps and landscape debris generated on the island and turns it into nutrient-rich compost that is directly returned to the soil on and off the island to community gardens and parks in the city. Volunteers are seen here setting up pads of woodchips and landscape debris from the island to prep for a drop off of food scraps. Photograph: Thalia Juarez/The Guardian Open to the public, the site aims to show how communities can participate in small-scale composting within an urban Bayrer, one of the founders, is seen here holding the finished compost, organic matter that can be used as fertilizer in garden soil. 'It's the magic of the transformation,' said Bayrer about what keeps him returning to the island to share the knowledge of this ancient practice. Photograph: Thalia Juarez/The Guardian Earth Matter's work heavily relies on education and volunteer activities, such as caring for the goats, which are brought from a dairy farm each summer. Their nitrogen-rich manure is added to the composting process. A once-abandoned military chapel, formerly known as Our Lady Star of the Sea, was renovated and opened in 2024 to host the island's climate week and other events. Now known as Building 309, people are seen here lining up for a Climate Solutions Showcase event in June. The first year of the climate pilot program in June 2023 focused on water, a theme for which the island is an expert. Now in its second year, the program has invited companies working in the circular economy, a model that aims shifting from a linear model of resource extraction, product creation, and waste to methods that eliminate waste and pollution, maximizing resource use through the principles of reduce, reuse, recycle, and repair. Attendees are seen here Manuel Benitez Ruiz shares his ideas for embedding vegetation into building materials, marketed as low-carbon concrete, designed to enhance air quality and reduce extreme heat during public demonstrations of the Climate Solutions Showcase on the island in April. His company, Plantaer, will test its living concrete façade technology on the island in the coming year. One of the inspirations for this year's theme of reusing and recycling is a solar-powered micro factory from Circular Economy manufacturing. It chops up plastic waste like laundry detergent bottles and then uses a low energy system to form new things. Governors Island has a grant-funded project to collaborate on the manufacture of park furniture. Made from plastic film canisters, these planters are among the products that Circular Economy manufacturing hopes to continue creating from plastic waste. Led by Barent Roth, a designer and professor at the Parsons School of Design, he saw a huge need for industrial designers to design specifically to solve environmental problems.'Too often designers were just making stylistic changes and not worrying about the massive amount of waste that was being generated, and I saw us as being part of the problem when we could be part of the solution. So I just kind of dedicated my career to it.' 'Whatever your area of expertise, there's something you can contribute to solving these problems,' said Barent Roth.– The Guardian receives support for visual climate coverage from the Outrider Foundation. The Guardian's coverage is editorially independent.
Yahoo
02-08-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Jim Cramer Says Waste Management Earnings Reflect Economic Health
Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE:WM) is one of the stocks Jim Cramer recently talked about. Cramer was quite positive on the company's earnings as he said: 'Last night, we got an excellent quarter from WM, the garbage disposal operation/provider of comprehensive environmental solutions, formerly known as Waste Management. This company delivered a healthy top and bottom line beat, driven by strength in the core business, along with mostly positive guidance. That's why the stock jumped more than 3% today… This one's important because the garbage business can actually give you a great read on the economy.' Image by Sergei Tokmakov, Esq. from Pixabay Waste Management (NYSE:WM) provides waste collection, recycling, and disposal services, including landfill gas-to-energy operations and renewable material processing. The company also delivers specialized waste solutions, compliance services, and secure information destruction. Cramer called the company stock a 'super strong buy' in a March episode, as he said: 'No, I think it is a super strong buy, a lifetime, super strong buy. I'm a buyer right here and every time I've ever sold that, it has been wrong.' While we acknowledge the potential of WM as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now. Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey. Sign in to access your portfolio
Sky News
10-06-2025
- Business
- Sky News
Recycling firm seeks Impact with £3m IW Capital investment
A plastic recycling business which counts Nestle, the Swiss consumer goods giant, among its backers, will this week unveil a multimillion pound capital injection from one of its key shareholders. Sky News understands that Impact Recycling, which uses a complex process to separate mixed plastic waste into 'high-purity' output, has struck a deal to secure £3.3m from existing venture capital backer IW Capital. Impact Recycling, which has received a grant from the government agency Innovate UK and a £7m loan from Nestle, counts the NHS as a major customer at its Glasgow site, where it recycles medical plastic waste. The company is also backed by LG Chem, Korea's biggest chemical company, reflecting the growing demand among global industrial groups for more sustainable environmental solutions to their manufacturing processes. IW Capital's latest investment comes during a period of significant regulatory change, including in the form of the EU's Plastic Packaging and Plastic Packaging Waste Directive, which mandates 35% recycled content to be used in any plastic packaging by 2030. That figure will rise to 60% by 2040, posing a major industrial challenge. David Walsh, CEO of Impact Recycling, said: "With strong demand from global partners and our licensing model gaining traction, we're well-positioned to scale our operations." The new capital is to be used in part to expand Impact Recycling's operations to new markets. "Impact Recycling exemplifies the kind of business we're proud to support-deeply innovative, commercially proven, and playing a critical role in the future of sustainable materials," Alan Armstrong, chairman of IW Capital, said.
