I'm Michael Feniger. I'm the Machinery Engineering and Environmental Services Analyst at Bank of America. Just a fancy way of saying I cover the waste sector. I want to thank Clean Harbors for coming to the conference. I know many of you may be aware yesterday we had Waste Management, Republic, and Waste Connections, the big three waste companies, but increasingly, we're getting more and more attention on the other side of the solid waste equation in the industry, the hazardous side, and as you will find out, Clean Harbors is the leader in that space, and we're really excited to have them here for the first time and to really kind of unpack their opportunity and what they see with that market.
So before we kind of dive in, I'm going to actually just pass it off to Eric and Jim to introduce themselves, give a little bit of a background. We're going to keep this conversation 30 minutes, very informal. If anyone has any questions in the audience, feel free to raise your hand. We're happy to kind of have more of a dialogue around this. And for everyone on the line listening to the webcast, feel free to ping me if you have any further questions or want to learn more. Happy to put you in touch with Jim to carry on that conversation further. So maybe over to you, Eric.
Great. Well, thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I am Eric Dugas. I'm the Chief Financial Officer here at Clean Harbors. I've been with the company 11 years now and in my role as CFO for the last two. Prior to that, I was the Chief Accounting Officer for the five years prior. So I've been working on the finance side of the business, but obviously worked very, very closely on operations and sales and really see the whole spectrum.
Jim Buckley, I'm SVP of Investor Relations. Thanks to B of A for having us here. It's a great conference for us to attend. And my background is I've been internal at the company for 12 years as the IRO, but I was at an agency before that. And Alan McKim and the Clean Harbors team was my client. So I've written every earnings release since June of 1995. So I got to celebrate my 30th anniversary pretty soon with Clean Harbors earnings releases.
Wow. So definitely not a rookie.
No, not a rookie. Wealth of knowledge.
Wealth of knowledge. All right. Well, gentlemen, maybe just because some of the audience and even the people on the webcast heard from the solid waste guys, they would just love to know where Clean Harbors kind of fits into the ecosystem when we think about the overall environmental services industry.
Sure, and I'll jump in on that one first, and then Jim, just fill in the dots, but when you think about Clean Harbors and how we compare to some of the more solid waste peers that Michael mentioned a moment ago, I think the biggest difference is those solid waste peers, really, their market that they're able to address is larger than ours. You think about those customers. It's the end of everyone's driveway. It's parking lots with dumpsters, and so you think about the amount of waste they're handling, it's probably close to 10x what we handle from an environmental or industrial waste side, so when you think about our customers, we service much of the Fortune 500, but our customers are largely, think about chemical companies, general manufacturing companies, oil and gas companies, companies that are producing hazardous waste.
So Clean Harbors, we handle everything short of nuclear waste across a variety of verticals. But the other big thing that I would point to is when you think about industrial waste, these are oftentimes very dangerous. We like to maybe joke every now and again, we're not talking about banana peels here. We're talking about harmful chemicals that can hurt people. And so our business is very much a highly regulated industry. And one of the unique things about our business is that when you think about the customers we serve, the liability associated with the types of waste that they're generating and we're handling, that liability begins with the generator of the waste at its inception. And then they maintain liability throughout the process until that dangerous waste is ultimately destroyed or disposed of.
So they rely on us, Clean Harbors, to handle that waste in a safe way. We test virtually all the waste we collect so we know exactly what it is. And so as we move it safely through our network onto the disposal sites, we know what we have and we're handling it appropriately and disposing of it appropriately. So our niche is in that environmental space, the stuff that you can't just throw in the trash and get to a landfill. And very specialized work with specialized equipment and people.
The only thing I'd add to that, that's a great description, is their awesome business models, right? Proximity, as Eric said, it's over 300 million tons of trash each year. There's about 35 million tons of hazardous waste. So it is that sort of 10x opportunity. But you don't have compliance around rotten bananas.
Everything we pick up is associated with paperwork. As Eric said, we profile everything. We know what's in the waste stream versus kind of just grabbing barrels at the end of the driveway. And so people always ask in terms of margins, they just have such great density and proximity, whereas sometimes we'll pick up waste on the East Coast and we got to bring it halfway across the country. And so it's just a different business model.
Maybe on that business model, I think what investors have always liked about the solid waste space is the idea that these landfills are hard infrastructure assets. You can't replicate them. I think just if we're talking about MSW solid waste landfills, you've gone from two decades ago 10,000 to maybe 1,700. Maybe you could just help us understand how it works in terms of the collection and disposal side. Obviously, there are hazardous landfills. Just kind of help everyone in the room and on the line right now understand what the market looks like in terms of collection and disposal for your guys' space.
Sure. So when you think about the collection space or our collection arm, we have a variety of assets where we can handle waste. But collection is largely done through our transportation network where we'll go out and collect. We operate a top 15 transportation network. Our fleet is a top 15 fleet in North America where we're going out with that specialized equipment with very highly trained personnel and collecting and testing the waste, as I mentioned a moment ago. When you think about post-collection on its way to disposal, if you will, or initial collection, obviously we have a network of assets, over 100 sites where we can handle waste.
Oftentimes, the first stop in the journey of a waste stream will be at what we refer to as a TSDF, which is really a location where we can take in that waste, perhaps do some initial treatment, but also segregate the waste, put it in by its likeness with other similar waste, transport it efficiently and safely onto its next step, which could be a landfill, could be a hazardous waste incinerator. When you think about our network on disposal, we have 10 of 14 hazardous waste incinerators, so roughly about two-thirds or 70% of the commercial market right now. Really excited about our 10th and new incinerator in Kimball, Nebraska, that we opened up just last December.
So that is really a new incinerator modeled after an incinerator that we built in Arkansas about seven years ago, is able to handle kind of the most dangerous types of hazardous waste. So really excited about that opportunity and growing our network that way. But then on the hazardous landfill side, we have about a third of the overall commercial market on hazardous waste landfills. So really a large player, obviously, in the space and the number one player in North America.
And to your point, Michael, on the hazardous landfill, there hasn't been a greenfield permitted since 1996. And prior to us opening one in 2017, there hadn't been a new hazardous commercial incinerator since 1997. So these are like the most scarce of scarce types of assets.
And I mean, we'll talk a little bit about Kimball, but it's really difficult, it sounds like, to even think about opening up a new haz landfill. But even incinerator, how difficult is that barrier to entry for private equity or someone to come in and try to maybe have that infrastructure and have an asset to be competitive?
Yeah. I mean, it's very difficult. I think one of the things that set Clean Harbors apart in the last two expansions, both in Arkansas that I mentioned and our latest one in Kimball, is that we had an existing incinerator at those sites. So this is really just an incremental build of an additional facility. And so having the ability to already have those permits in place, having the relationship with the local communities, having a long history of safety and investment in those communities really gave us kind of an advantage to be able to build the new incinerator in a relatively short period of time. It was about a five-year construction phase from very initial permit modifications to completing the project. And we spent roughly $200-$210 million on this new incinerator that will generate $40-$45 million of incremental EBITDA when it's up and running.
To answer your question, these are difficult, hard to replicate, hard to permit sites. We were at a distinct advantage already having the history and locations where these operated to be able to really expand that footprint.
Interesting. And Eric, maybe just to rewind a little bit. In 2024, you grew revenue 9%, EBITDA 10%. So a little margin expansion on that. Maybe just to help everyone, what were the factors that kind of drove that growth in 2024, either positive or held it back? And what are you seeing for 2025 right now?
Yeah. First off, Michael, I'd say those numbers that you articulated there, the 9% and 10% growth at revenue and EBITDA, that was at a consolidated basis. Up to this point, we've spoken mostly about our environmental services segment, which is roughly 85%-90% of the business. So that really is kind of the main story here. That segment actually grew 10% top line and 15% EBITDA. About 10% of that was organic growth in EBITDA. So really a great story. But some of the things driving that is the company saw a really good year from a volume perspective. If you think about waste streams, we collect a lot of our waste streams as drum waste. And we saw the number of drums that we took into the network increase 12%-15% each month, kind of year on year. So some really good volume expansion there.
When you think about more volumes coming in, it's a very highly leverageable network of assets we have. So each incremental drum in this case that can come into the network, you see a lot of margin expansion, a lot of profitability dropping to the bottom line. We also saw really good, we've had several years now of really good pricing strategies where we're able to price above inflation and drive margin expansion. And how are we able to do that? I think first off, it's delivering great service to our customers safely, given the assets that we have. And customers really value that for some of the reasons, some of the liability reasons that we talked about before. But also knowing that their waste partner is going to show up on time, take care of the waste, dispose of it properly, that contributes to our pricing power as well.
So you've seen that great volume growth, good pricing power. The other thing that I'd call out is we really did a very nice acquisition in 2024 with the acquisition of HEPACO, which continued to fill out our field services business. Our field services business is a lot of folks, when they think about Clean Harbors, you see us in the news responding to emergency responses, whether that be avian flus, whether that be COVID response, whether that be oil spills. And it's really that field services business that's doing that work. So HEPACO filled out a nice geography for us there. HEPACO got us access to some more emergency response work. And we really are seeing more responses that we are reacting to here, whether that be brought about by just human error, weather-related incidents.
You see a lot of folks calling in the experts, those being Clean Harbors, when bad things happen. That legacy field services business saw about a 9% organic growth this year, 47% growth considering the acquisition. I bring that up because it is really a truly great story in 2024.
And then as you're thinking of 2025, as we think of those pieces in terms of volume, price, obviously it seems like the acquisition is gaining momentum. Just how do we kind of put those buckets together and think about how 2025 evolves?
Yeah. So I think many of the positive trends that we saw in 2024, we expect to continue. We gave out some full-year guidance last week during our earnings release. And in terms of the Environmental Services segment that we're talking about here, we guided to about 6% or 7% growth in 2025. So down a little bit from the 10%, but still very kind of respectable. And in line with two years ago, we put out our Vision 2027, which is our long-term goal where we had 6% or 7% growth in that ES business. So expect to see some of those same trends continue. I guess I'd also take the opportunity, if you think about kind of both short-term and long-term growth catalysts of the business, there's a lot of things. And I'm sure we can talk to some of the specifics in a moment.
I'm talking about kind of, I think, the current administration kind of pro-growth, pro-business. We've had reshoring and nearshoring that's been a tailwind for us, PFAS legislation and the movement around PFAS. A lot of great tailwinds kind of long-term for Clean Harbors as well.
Well, let's talk about that, Eric. I mean, I think new administration, there's a lot of things going on in terms of obviously your domestic story, so there's things with tariffs, but he's trying to stimulate the economy, get manufacturing back. ISM has been below 54 nearly 24 months or a two-year decline in manufacturing, trying to get that back. There's also worries on PFAS, which has been building momentum. Can we see the new EPA get involved, so there's a lot of puts and takes, so as a CFO, I'm just curious how you're kind of looking at these tailwinds and headwinds and really what you're going to be monitoring over the next 6-12 months to kind of give you a gauge on how those things play out.
Yeah. I mean, I'll start with what I'm kind of looking at, and I think we want to get into specifically the PFAS or some of the administration expectations. Jim can touch on that, but really what I'm looking at is continuing to see those volumes increase, so I mentioned kind of the drum count. Are we continuing to see that? How are we doing with some of our pricing strategies? What is inflation looking like, right, and we can talk about tariffs and what that might mean for inflation, but what is inflation doing and how am I pricing and how are we pricing things effectively against that, right? So those are some of the key levers that I'll be looking at, and we'll be monitoring what the administration does to determine we to make sure we respond in the right ways.
I mean, at our core, Michael, we're an industrial production business because as the country produces, we take the byproducts and we recycle what can be recycled and we dispose what can't be. And we provide services around all of that. So when you think of the past several years, well, we've been wildly successful. And as Eric said, we guided to 6% or 7% to start last year, delivered 10% organically and 15% with the HEPACO from an EBITDA perspective. There's no reason to think we wouldn't do that again this year. We just guided to 6% or 7% to start again. Because part of that industrial production plus, plus, plus is pricing, which we should be able to do again, is projects. And we always don't assume those in our guidance, but they happen every year. And last year we had a number of ERs.
With the HEPACO business, we'll have access now to even more. We had 21,000 emergency responses last year. And every one of those is a scratch ticket to something larger potentially. And so we feel really good about the growth path we're on as far as Trump and the new administration. Eric touched on it. It's very pro-growth. We're not a multinational. So in the end, if his policies are successful and drive American manufacturing and American jobs and American production, that's all perfect for Clean Harbors. But I think that was already underway. And there's folks out there tracking manufacturing projects. There's, I think, 584 was the number I saw of $1 billion or larger manufacturing projects over the next five to 10 years. All of that will be beneficial to Clean Harbors beyond new legislation or the new administration.
And then hopefully some of these new policies put that on steroids. And they move really quick. It'll be beneficial to us. I mean, from a, we're also an acquisitive company. So one thing to touch on is there's some thought that dealmaking and people in your world certainly are looking at, will that go back to a much more robust pace and bring more things to market? And a lot of times in the past, because we are number one or number two in so many of the areas we operate in, sometimes we don't even get invited to the party for some certain acquisitions because they feel like the DOJ overhang would be too much. And so this might open up some avenues for us as well under a new administration.
That's helpful. And just since we're on the topic of the administration, I mean, PFAS, this is a conference that's had a lot of chemical companies. So we've heard about this from time to time. Obviously, when it comes to waste, if it's designated as a hazardous substance, that does change the discussion. So just for reference, yesterday, the waste companies are mostly non-hazardous waste. So this PFAS designation did kind of change the game. I just love to hear from you guys, what is the opportunity there as you guys have the largest amount of hazardous landfills, you guys have incinerators? How has that kind of changed how those conversations? And Eric, just your initial take on the new EPA, what are you kind of hearing? We're hearing there is some worry that there may be some slow walking, but everyone wants clean water. Everyone wants clean air.
So I want to pass it off to you about what the opportunity is and how you're kind of looking at that going forward.
Yeah. You want to take this, Jim?
Sure. Yeah. I mean, Lee Zeldin doesn't have much of an environmental track record and stepping in as head of EPA. But the one thing we knew about him was that he's been very pro-PFAS cleanup. He's done that as a congressman in New York. He's voted on some legislation there. In the summer of 2019, there was a House bill and a Senate bill both called the PFAS Act of 2019. And Lee was a proponent on the House side for their version. Of course, they could never agree, the sky's blue. So they never got a bill to Trump's desk. But he's got actually a kind of a track record there. And he's made public statements already that PFAS is going to remain a priority. So we don't see that. I know there's that whole deregulatory kind of aura around Trump. But we don't see that really changing.
And at our core, it doesn't matter what administration is in because chlorines and fluorines and halogens are harmful to human health. And that just doesn't change administration to administration. So from that perspective, it's still game on for us. As far as PFAS, we rolled out a complete, we call it a total PFAS solution last year that's been well received in the market in terms of being able to analyze and sample soil and water, being able to filter drinking water. We're doing that. I think if we were speaking three years ago, Michael, we would have said, we don't play in the drinking water business. But we were sort of pulled in there with PFAS because oftentimes there may be, and it happened in the case of Pearl Harbor, there was a fuel spill and we were brought in to sort of clean that up.
Then as they started to test the water, it turned out it was loaded with PFAS. We set up a large filtration system out at the naval base in Oahu. We're there and we'll be there through at least the end of the decade now. Suddenly we're in there and we've done a tremendous job that team did. The Defense Department has asked us to participate in other areas. Our carbon filtration business has grown faster than we ever would have anticipated. For us, the Holy Grail is the disposal of PFAS, right? We've got closed-loop landfills. Anything that goes into our landfills, we control the leachate. When you have a landfill, you're always going to have groundwater or rain that has to get dealt with at some point.
That's an issue for the solid waste folks because they've been burying carpets and couches and Teflon pans for decades. So their leachate's coming out. Obviously they have to deal with the PFAS in there. But for us, because we never send that back into the water table, we either destroy it through incineration or deep well injection or we have a sophisticated evaporator system at one of our landfills so that we can take it in the landfills. It never gets back into the environment. Ultimately what we think is the best solution is to destroy PFAS and put it into an incinerator.
So I think that just one last point that I would add to that, and it's kind of the key takeaway of everything that Jim was talking about is we believe whatever the ultimate rules and regulations are here, Clean Harbors is in a very unique space. One, we have relationships with many of the companies that are going to need to deal with this issue, whether that be the government or private companies. But two, we have currently the infrastructure to handle it, whether that be soil remediation, water filtration. We have the equipment and know-how to excavate things. And then we have the ultimate end disposal, right? Along with the transportation to get it there. So it's a fully integrated, full solution that we have now. We don't need to, we don't have incremental CapEx that we'll need to invest to be able to build out that network.
We've got it now. We're ready to go. And we have the relationship, so.
Well, it's interesting, Eric, as Jim pointed out, three years ago, you weren't there. Now you're doing this to serve as a customer's. Three years ago, the solid waste companies were not talking about ES, and now we've seen a shift. One made a big acquisition. They're doing a few others. They're talking about it, so I'd love to understand without maybe you commenting specifically on competitors, just how has the competitive dynamic changed? Is it a welcome to have these big companies that have this type of pricing? Does it make it a little bit more competitive as you evaluate M&A? Just what is it that you're seeing out there that now just ES is much more in the headlines, either with Apollo, either with some of the solid waste acquisitions we've seen?
Just love to get your sense of the shift that you've observed in the last few years.
Yeah. I think it's been an interesting last couple of years. I think a lot more eyes on the space. I think investors and strategics looking to add to their portfolio really see the value in our marketplace. I think they do see downside protection. These are necessary services that companies need to have, right? They need to get rid of their waste. They need to do it in a safe way. And I think people really, really value that. So the landscape on the M&A front, it's becoming, it has become more competitive. I think on balance, that's a good thing for Clean Harbors. I think the value of our company has increased. And I think there's a lot of catalysts for that.
In terms of new entrants and new players, I think it's been good to have larger sophisticated companies come in, bring some of that operational discipline, has been good, and look forward to that to continue, but no question, there's more eyes in the space. I think they're really seeing the value in these hard to replicate, hard to obtain assets that the country drastically needs, especially now given some of the pro-growth type things going on.
Can you talk a little bit about just the incinerators? I think if I look at Q4, I think utilization was at 94%. You were able to get pricing up. Just help us understand for the audience, what are the key KPIs you look at that say you can drive pricing and what you see the long-term outlook there?
Yeah. Certainly pricing, volume, throughput, and utilization are some of the key KPIs there. You mentioned 94% in Q4, awesome quarter for the plants. They ran really well, limited number of down days throughout the year. There are scheduled down days where we need to do turnaround activities and things. And Q4 was rather low there. But for the full year, so each individual quarter might be difficult to evaluate. But for the full year, kind of running in that high 80% utilization is where we'd like to target. And that's kind of where we want to live. So certainly look at that KPI. And then you mentioned pricing in the fourth quarter here, kind of year on year, 4% increase in pricing. Because of the high utilization, there's some mixed impacts there.
On a like-to-like level, probably closer to 6% or 7% kind of year on year pricing is what we're seeing in disposal and incinerators, and really that's driven by the strong demand and the nature of items going through there.
And can you talk, since we're on the topic of incinerators, Kimball? I mean, this has been a big project for you guys. Just how'd you evaluate it? How'd you feel comfortable making that investment and what you really think the returns are for that area, for that incinerator going forward?
Yeah. So like I alluded to a little bit earlier, kind of Kimball was part two of kind of a new incinerator build-out, if you will. So with the success that we had from the incinerator that we built down in Kimball, excuse me, El Dorado, Arkansas, and opened six, seven years ago now, we really saw an opportunity about five years ago as Eldo was ramping up in full to, hey, our customers and the market really needs another incinerator. So we had that blueprint from El Dorado. We had a couple of different sites we could have chosen from. We elected Kimball, Nebraska as the next phase. So really it's a replication of the Eldo facility. Few incremental kind of bells and whistles and capabilities in Kimball. But again, we had a site there, as I mentioned. So it was a permit modification.
We had a great relationship with the local community. We had invested in that community and continued to do so. It was an area where we could attract people to for labor to work the new incinerator. So we've done all that. Like I said, about a $210 million total investment. And at today's pricing, when this thing is up and running, it'll produce $40-$45 million of incremental EBITDA, which is what we're estimating here. Now the ramp-up, we're purposely going to take it a little slow in terms of the ramp-up, maybe get it to about 50% capacity this year and hopefully exit 2026 kind of at full capacity. So that's by choice. Certainly these are valuable assets. It takes a little break-in time to make sure everything's running well and work out the kinks. And that's the strategy that we're going to kind of pull forward.
The other thing I'd add, Michael, is given our market share, and so we've gotten this question a few times from some folks today about capacity and is there too much, too little, how does it impact pricing? As the clear industry leader, we'd rather, as it turns out, we were late with building Kimball. We'd rather have had it a couple of years ago. We didn't know the pandemic was going to happen and reshoring was going to happen, nor did we know that the chemical company running the largest captive was going to close in 2022. And so we had to kind of scramble with the whole industry was a bit backlogged. But given our share and how we want to price, we'd rather be late than early.
And so we've gotten asked today about when are we building the next one potentially out at our Utah site, which could fit. That's what we have to weigh when we make that decision is we want to make sure the market's ready for us rather than having to go chase volume.
And maybe, Jim, just to pull on that string a little bit because now Kimball, you spent the CapEx already. How do you evaluate, Eric, the free cash flow going forward? Because it seems like pricing, it doesn't seem like margins have a ceiling yet in your ES business. So just curious how, with so much focus on free cash flow and free cash flow conversion, how are you kind of thinking that step up in the next few years?
Yeah. Certainly we guided to lower CapEx here in 2025 as the completion of Kimball has taken place, so when we think about kind of free cash flow, oftentimes we'll look at kind of free cash flow conversion or the amount of free cash flow generated as a percentage of our EBITDA, and we've targeted 40% or above, so the last few years, if you kind of normalize and take out that Kimball investment, we're right about there in the high 30% touching 40%. As we project forward next year, we have a little bit of catch-up capital from some of the acquisitions we did this year that we put off because of the completion of Kimball, but we're kind of right there at approaching 40% free cash flow conversion.
As I look out and I think about long-term targets and long-term goals, it's exceeding that 40% in pushing it up each year closer to 45% longer term. But that's really what we're looking at. That being said though, to the extent that we have internal accretive opportunities like Kimball, there's some of those out there on the horizon that we won't be afraid to execute either.
Maybe you could talk about, because you referenced it earlier, just the M&A strategy because you guys do have cash to deploy. I mean, is it that you have these disposal networks and you're building the field service and collection around it to build that density? Jim talked about transportation's really important. Just what should investors think about year in, year out, what Clean Harbors is kind of looking at on the M&A front?
Yeah. I mean, certainly M&A in the company's 45-year history, that's been the predominant driving factor. And we'll continue to do that. When you think about what we're targeting, certainly continuing to build out our environmental services business, building out that collection arm of waste, bringing more and more volumes into this highly leverageable network. We often call it feeding the beast, right? And bringing that into our disposal assets. Those are the most attractive opportunities. I think the HEPACO acquisition that we talked about before, again, building out in certain geographic areas our capabilities in field services, which is what we did with HEPACO, great opportunity. And those types of service business, those feed the beast, if you will, as well.
You don't think about field service or industrial service as areas that produce a lot of hazardous waste, but there is hazardous waste that comes out of that that again can go into our waste network. So it's filling in a couple of geographic holes. It's looking to drive more waste into the network. It's looking to consolidate certain things in certain areas. Those are all kind of where we would look for M&A.
Maybe as we're wrapping up, can you kind of touch on Safety-Kleen, just this other portion of your business, just maybe some of the headwinds you've seen there and how you're kind of managing that going forward? Is it kind of core to everything you guys kind of do? Just love to touch on that.
So the Safety-Klee n business or SKSS, this is our oil collection and refining business, about 10% of the overall EBITDA at this point. So a much smaller piece of the business. We've really come against some headwinds in this business on the base oil pricing side of things. So if you think about the major factors here, it's what is the cost or revenue, the cost savings or revenue generation we can have from collecting used motor oil, which we use as a feedstock, send it to our refineries, and then produce base oils and blended oils. And it's the pricing, that exit price that's really been dampened over the last couple of years and contributed to kind of the decreased earnings profile.
If you think about the business and being core, it is a business where we're collecting a waste, i.e., used oil here, and recycling it into a finished good. So at its core, it's a similar process, but it does have a different risk profile in terms of commodity risk and what is under our control, right? Some of it is not under our control. So as we do, we'll look to continue to improve the business as we do all of our businesses. But the other thing is there are complementary aspects that bring in some additional services on the waste side of the business from there as well. So we'll see. But really a solid business, it does generate very good free cash flow even in times when EBITDA is not as impressive.
Good to know. And maybe just to wrap up, Eric, the story has worked really well over the last few years. Just what do you look at as you guys are kind of the big fish in this pond? What are you kind of looking at benchmark-wise? Maybe versus other companies. Jim mentioned maybe transportation. There's this logistics element to your business. I'm just curious from your vantage point what you're kind of looking at in terms of feeling like what the long-term potential is for CLH.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it really starts with network efficiency and throughput and utilization of personnel, utilization of equipment, lowering our rental spend. There's a hundred projects that our asset management group's always working on to kind of goose the margins along with our pricing. And as Eric said, even when it's non-haz waste that we may be taking somewhere else, once you've got those trucks out and going, the incremental pickup revenue falls through pretty quickly. And so as we look at acquisitions, we certainly want things that are going to drive more waste, not necessarily to the incinerators like a HEPACO. Not a lot of incineration waste, but those folks go out and clean up spills of a lot of different chemicals. And so that gets driven through the network. And so from a perspective of how we want to grow, it's looking at all aspects of that.
It's price, it's volume, it's efficiency. And that's how we've taken margins in the ES business up 550 basis points over the last five years. And ultimately in that business, take the oil recycling aside for a second, we'd like to get to that 30% margin and look more like our solid waste peers.
We're going to do all that by maintaining our position as the largest player by delivering great, safe, and reliable service to our customers. That's really the key here.
Perfect. Well, maybe we'll wrap up there. I want to thank Clean Harbors team for coming. And if anyone has any questions or follow-ups, please reach out to me. Happy to put you in touch with Jim.
Thanks, everyone. Thank you, Michael.
Thank you, Eric.