Alright, thank you. Everybody, we have John Morris, COO of WM. We have Tara Hemmer, Chief Sustainability Officer from WM, here joining us. So thank you, you know, so much for taking the time and participating. John, maybe just wanted to start with you from sort of a high level. You know, we're in sort of an environment where yield and inflation are kind of pointing down.
There's a downward slope on, I think, revenue growth for most of the industry. So what level of EBITDA growth is sustainable for the collection and disposal? And how do you think collection and disposal can kind of participate in the 8% to 9% long-term EBITDA target for the company?
So I would tell you, Brian, I mean, if you look at 2024 from sort of a volume perspective as kind of a proxy for the economy, you saw that our residential business was considered to be soft. Most of that was deliberate. And, you know, we said we put almost $180 million to the bottom line while losing 3.5% volume.
So I start with that because that's sort of a deliberate move for the most part from WM's perspective to improve that business to where it competes with the other lines of business. And then when you look, there's some bright spots too. Our MSW business was solid, special waste was solid, our commercial business was positive.
We saw some softness, obviously, in some of the roll-off for industrial business, which I think is a barometer, some softness in, you know, what's going on with housing and those kind of things. I think what we're really proud of is, you know, we look at all overall revenue growth for the year being slightly positive, but yet you look at what we did from an earnings contribution standpoint, margin improvement, OpEx improvement.
I think that gives us confidence that in any cycle we can continue to produce better earnings and better margins. We're focused a lot this year and the last handful of years really in the middle of the P&L is kind of the phrase we use, which includes SG&A and capital discipline. So even in sort of a muted or flattish environment, we continue to see the business drive a lot of improvement.
Right. Right. And I think, you know, margins were up 210 basis points in collection and disposal last year. You know, the net price spread is sort of what everybody's focusing on there. Can you just maybe frame for us the extent of those tailwinds that are kind of carrying into 2025? I think, you know, we're expecting a more moderate level of margin growth this year, but yeah, just how many of those kind of net price tailwinds are going to be still relevant this year?
So when you look at pricing, and I'll exclude the recent acquisition of Stericycle, when you look at the core solid waste business, we've said for the last number of years we're going to take a customer lifetime value approach. We're playing long game when it comes to pricing. We've navigated, I think, some peaks and valleys from sort of a CPI or inflationary standpoint.
And I think when you stretch the tape at how the business has performed, we've been able to navigate all those different peaks and valleys. So, but I would say when inflation is pointing down, it's certainly easier, not easy, but easier to get core price moved through the business, drive yield, and drive margin improvement.
You know, when inflation post-COVID was up as high as 8%, 9%, whatever % you want to put on it, it's a lot harder to deliver that message to a customer as it's moderated. We've still maintained the same discipline around pricing and been able to drive margin improvement. I think part of the benefit of CPI being low is we're able to do that a little easier.
Right. Right. Makes sense. Just on sort of the pricing for 2025, but also just kind of long-term, can you maybe remind us how much WM's pricing is considered kind of restricted pricing and then the sort of key indices you're tethered to? I know everyone's kind of using a different thing these days, WST or headline CPI.
I smile when you said restricted. I don't use that word. Indexed I use. I use index. And excuse the sarcasm, but we really, when you look at our business, about 40% of it is indexed, all jokes aside. And it's been a big piece of what we've focused on for the last number of years to find, in my words, the right rate-setting mechanism for those agreements.
And as you can imagine, they're all different. But we want to focus on making sure that we've got the right rate-setting mechanism to make sure at a minimum that the price that we're able to push through the customer is going to keep up with inflation and give us the opportunity to improve margin.
I think what you also saw really start to really materialize in 2024 is the investments we're making in technology, business intelligence, and being less labor dependent really start to show up and squeeze the middle of the P&L, and you saw that we were down under 61% for the year, which was a great accomplishment by the team.
Right. For sure. And then maybe just on M&A, you know, we don't normally, I guess, post-Advanced Disposal, we don't always think about solid waste M&A with WM, but you did $750 million last year. So can you just maybe discuss sort of the criteria? You know, why is WM so selective in M&A? What is the criteria you're trying to check off? And then, you know, maybe we can talk about some of the specific assets that you've acquired.
Sure. I mean, 2024 was really a great year for us, and we feel good about the pipeline going into 2025. I had said halfway through the year we could be as high as $1 billion. We ended up at $780 million, I think was the exact number. So we've got some carryover, which is not a surprise. So we feel good about the M&A space right now.
One of the acquisitions we did was the Winters Brothers acquisition in Long Island. Ironically, that's a piece of business we sold to them many moons ago, and we went back and acquired it. It was a white space on the map for us, if you will. They run a good business. It's been a great acquisition.
But the real strategic thrust behind that one in particular, which was the largest one we did, was really about the value our network can provide to that part of the world. And, you know, moving waste is getting obviously a little bit more complicated as some of these metropolitan facilities close down.
We've spent a lot of time, money, and investment to make sure we build out our network, whether it's by truck, by rail, or by water, to make sure that we have the ability to move these volumes. And Long Island's a good example of that because there's not enough capacity for the volume that's out there.
And we felt like the timing was right for us to step in, buy a great business with a great team, and lay on top of that our capabilities from a logistics perspective to internalize not only the waste lines, but a lot of the recycling lines out there as well.
Brian, just I think this is a little bit misunderstood with WM. We are absolutely focused on core M&A, and we're really looking at it from the viewpoint of where is the growth going to be in North America moving forward. And so we've made a lot of organic investments in the South, if you think about where people are moving, but also looking at core M&A in those spaces.
And there's more room to go. There are certainly geographies just like Winters Brothers where we didn't operate before. And we're actively looking at where we can plug in as you think about where the growth is going to be.
Right. Right. And then, John, I went deep, deep in the archives, and then only on the last two calls has WM ever mentioned rail assets. So did you recently come into those? Are they just playing a bigger role now? And you mentioned just waste is harder to move. So I was wondering if you can kind of expand on that because I imagine that's a very big part of your job.
Sure. So we've been in the rail, the waste-by-rail business for a long time, but it was primarily, excuse me, two markets. It was Pacific Northwest, where we moved waste out of the Puget Sound south to some of our rail access sites in Oregon and the East Coast. It was sort of the New York metro area. But we started those businesses.
I know we started our rail business in New York City because I was there. It was 1997, July 7th, to be exact, our first New York City contract. So we've had rail infrastructure for a long time. What I commented on in the call is last year we opened up yet another lane, intermodal lane going east to west into Indiana to one of our facilities out there.
And if you look at the complexity of moving material, particularly, I wouldn't say just East Coast, sort of the eastern third of the U.S., we're moving stuff out of South Florida right now that we weren't moving a year ago by rail. That's another example. So when I talk about the rail assets, I think the work we've been doing from a network planning standpoint to make sure, I use this hockey analogy as a former hockey player, you got to escape to where the puck's going to be.
And if you look three, five, seven, 10 years out and you start to look at what the disposal network looks like, it's going to change substantially. So we're trying to do all the work now to make sure as it evolves, we're in front of it. We can accommodate what our customers' needs are, even if it means moving this material further and by different modes of transportation.
Right. Right. And maybe kind of shifting into the recycling part of the business, but, you know, would love for both of you to kind of chime in. Just big picture, we think about maybe a macro trend of people prioritizing sustainability at the point of purchase. They're thinking about how the product will be ultimately disposed of.
They have kind of a negative view on landfill expansion. So just like big picture, you talk about skating to where the puck is going. How are you kind of trying to position WM for this macro theme where, yeah, there's maybe a little bit of kind of a guilty conscience about throwing something away, you know?
So if landfills have been WM's wide and deep moat, we are thinking differently about that. Landfills are still going to be a part of the portfolio that we bring to our customers, but it's going to go beyond that to recycling facilities, to organics facilities in certain markets. That's very important in California, and some other waste streams of the future.
So it's important that we have all of the assets in our toolkit to be able to deliver what our customers want. And the one thing that we always say is we don't generate the waste that's produced. We are trying to help solve the problem. And clearly, it's becoming more complex. There's no secret that there are landfills that have closed over time.
We've done an incredible job of getting landfill expansions in key markets and making sure that we're well positioned to handle the materials that are generated today. But we absolutely are looking at, you know, what's happening in the future. Because if you look at what's happening with millennials, Gen Z, they care about the materials that they're purchasing, and they really want to understand where it's going.
So that's one of the reasons why our recycling assets, this is our second highest return on invested capital traditional business. It has a better return on invested capital than our landfills, not than our renewable natural gas business today. So that is quickly surpassing it. But these are critical assets to the communities that we serve, and it's one of the reasons why we've invested in this growth.
Gotcha. And then maybe kind of getting into specifics a little bit. So, you know, there's the, you know, $1.34 billion recycling investment program WM's had out there for a couple of years now. Can you just maybe remind us about sort of the earnings ramp you have over, you know, the next couple of years? And how should we think about risk associated with that earnings ramp from either delays or commodity price fluctuations?
Sure. So we made an announcement back in 2022 that we were going to invest significantly in our recycling infrastructure, and the way that investment is going to come to life is by investing in 39 facilities. 12 of those will be new markets, and the balance will be really automating existing recycling facilities, and the reason why we did this was twofold.
One, those trends we just talked about earlier about where our customers and their consumers are headed, but two, if you look at the automation journey, our recycling facilities historically had been very dependent upon labor, so back in 2019, 2020, we came up with the concept of building this materials recovery facility of the future, sort of imagining what that could look like with dramatically less labor, and we proved out that concept and now are delivering it across over 25 different facilities across North America.
When we do that, we're able to do three key things. The first is we're creating more capacity for more volume moving forward. So we anticipate roughly 2.4-2.5 million tons of more capacity as recycling grows. The second is we reduce our labor costs longer term, and that's we've proven again, 30% reduction in labor costs. And the third is we create higher quality material that can go into the circular economy.
So we're, I would say on the recycling side, we're about halfway through our journey. When you look at the EBITDA ramp, we're further along based on facilities. And certainly, when you fast forward to 2027, well on track to our $300 million number. Very limited risk when you look at timing of projects on the recycling side and then also the construction costs because that's well known.
From Trend's perspective, because you asked about, you know, you didn't ask specifically, but maybe what's happening with the current administration and are there going to be pullbacks. This is not going to be a straight shot to the basket. We're going to see some twists and turns, but we're confident longer term that these consumer products organizations are going to want to buy material, and there's legislation in states that require it.
Right. Right. And long-term, is there some financial targets we can associate with the recycling business? There may be an EBITDA margin, but I know the brokerage business kind of distorts it a little bit, or maybe like a revenue growth target, or just same question that I asked John, just sort of how recycling can sort of help drive this 8%-9% long-term CAGR.
Absolutely. So the one stat that we're all really proud of is if you look at when commodity prices a couple of years ago were double what they were in 2023, we generated the same amount of EBITDA. So what that tells you is that we have de-risked the business in any commodity price environment and really put a floor on margins.
So a while ago, we had had this target of getting to really like a 20% EBIT margin on the recycling business, not excluding the brokerage business, of course. And looking at it, there's no reason we can't get there, and it will absolutely contribute to our broader goals as we translate that to EBITDA.
Got it. Got it. And then so with the Stericycle acquisition, are we going to have the document shredding business rolled into recycling moving forward? Or is that going to be part of healthcare or is it part of recycling?
Right now, it's part of healthcare, and we're reporting it that way. But rest assured, they're very focused with our recycling group on maximizing the benefit of the secure document destruction business. So I'll give you a couple of different examples. One is, you know, we might have a recycling facility that's very close to a shredding facility.
And so we're going to look at where does it make sense to process materials. It could mean that we're processing WM materials at the shredding facility, or we could move the shredded materials into the WM facility. The second is, you know, these are route-based businesses at customer locations.
So looking at if there are some things that we were doing in the legacy WM business that we can consolidate with the shredding business. As time evolves, we might think differently about how we segment report, but for today, we're going to keep it separate.
Got it. And is the shredded business, from the sounds of it, contributing at least some level to the $250 million synergy target?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Got it. Well, I can, you know, if anyone has a question here, you know, feel free to raise your hand and I can get a microphone to you. If not, I'll just keep going through my questions. So, you know, on the recycling, I think when I initiated on WM a couple of years ago, we were talking about the process of getting customers to feed for service models.
And I think I thought you said you were maybe 60% of the way there two years ago. Can you just, where are you now? Is that process basically done? And is your kind of burning sensitivity to commodities should be relatively kind of static going forward?
So we are, I would say, 99% there. And the reason why we say 99% is there may always be like some straggler. So virtually all of our contracts are done. And the way to think about it, because as we're handling more material, that's why you sort of saw us raise from the, it used to be the $10 was $20 million, now the $10 is $25. That's more about the volume of material. The important thing to note is that the margin or sort of the profitability floor has been raised through those contracts being changed over time.
Right. Right. And is WM taking part in any of the EPR efforts that are going on? I know in Canada, there's a big rollout, and then the United States is, you know, kind of state by state. But I guess just long term, you know, is EPR a big opportunity for WM? And how do you maybe have the opportunity to partake in that?
So we view extended producer responsibility as an opportunity provided the framework is right. And so that is one thing that our government affairs team works very closely on the states that are rolling it out. If you think about Canada, California, Colorado is the one in the U.S. that's really further ahead. Canada is a great example.
The differentiated technology that we have brought to bear in the United States, we've been able to leverage that technology into new business in Ontario, where we're building two new state-of-the-art recycling facilities in response to extended producer responsibility. We have a contract with the producer responsibility organization there. We view more opportunity in Canada as they continue their EPR rollout, and we're going to look at the same things in the United States.
Got it. Got it. And maybe switching gears to RNG, renewable natural gas a little bit. So maybe similar question to recycling. Can you kind of maybe frame the earnings ramp and then sort of the risk associated with the earnings ramp from either, you know, construction delays, qualification, or, you know, I guess getting power to the site can be an issue sometimes. We've hit everything post-COVID, so.
Yes. Yes. So we had, I would say, a lot of key learnings in 2022 and 2023 related to some supply chain dynamics. And then also one of our biggest things is we have to interconnect with electric utilities and also the natural gas pipeline. That being said, if you look at where we are in our journey, we have seven of the 20 plants that are online. We'll bring another eight online in 2025, and then the balance in early 2026.
So we have a great line of sight into how the plants are being constructed, their construction timelines, and the interconnect. If you look at the EBITDA ramp, what's interesting about, and this is for like recycling and renewable energy together, it'll produce this year about $270 million in EBITDA, and that will more than double in 2026.
You can imagine at the same time, our CapEx reduced from 2024 to 2025 by $325 million and goes down to about $150 million in 2026. Phenomenal free cash flow conversion from these investments. On the risk side related to renewable energy and renewable natural gas, it really comes down to our offtake contracts.
We've been working really hard on playing in both the voluntary market, which are longer-term contracts, and then also making sure that we can access the RIN market. We sold some 2025, pre-sold some 2025 RINs in 2024. Also this year, RIN prices have sort of settled at around $2.50. We're optimistic about where we're headed.
If I remember in 2004 too, I think, you know, RINs kind of dipped post-election, but WM didn't really see a change because you had locked in your RIN prices. How do we think about the sort of sensitivity to that this year? I guess, are you talking about, was it 60% locked in long-term you were targeting? And then is that sort of a good number to think about kind of being locked in for pricing in 2025?
During earnings, we had locked in about 50% of 2025 and around, call it 15-ish for 2026 and 2027. Those numbers will grow over time, and we'll give an update on our next earnings call. What the team has been able to do is now sort of pre-sell in the RINs market at a price for a future year. And that's really about how the market has evolved. You know, five years ago, you weren't able to do that. That's great from a liquidity perspective.
Right. And does the evolution of the RIN market, it's significantly larger than it is now, maybe give you some comfort in terms of price volatility around RINs and what certain administration change could do?
We get asked this question all the time because we are in a new administration, and it's no secret. During the first Trump administration, RIN prices dipped quite substantially. You know, this Trump administration, we think will be different than the first go-around. And a key piece of that is our RIN category.
It's not just about landfill gas to renewable natural gas, which of course, everyone wants to find a beneficial home for, but it's also about the ethanol states and the ethanol corn states are in Republican territory. We've heard that the number one thing that both sides want, including the obligated parties, is some stability and certainty on pricing.
One topic that's sort of come up in my conversations recently is kind of changes by the EPA to the RVO, saying maybe the lack of supply that in 2024 that didn't really get there is maybe like a little bit damning for the industry. I mean, how do you kind of perceive changes in the RVO to like changes in your actual sort of business model and profitability and long-term view?
Well, you know, one of the things the EPA did at the end of 2024 was sort of take a view that not as much volume would be produced. And they made it clear that they're going to look at that again early this year. That just hasn't come out. We've tried to advocate for looking at the projects that have broken ground, and there's a long ramp there to give them the visibility into the RNG that's going to come online.
The one thing that we're actively looking at beyond these 20 projects, because we have more landfill gas that's not beneficially used, is what is the RVO framework going to look like, and can we sell that offtake longer term? And then also, what are the capital costs associated with those projects? But that being said, if you look at the 20 projects that we've announced, we still believe very strong payback periods, three to four years, and we're going to have the offtake handled.
Right. Gotcha. Gotcha. You know, one question that I've gotten before is, you know, so WM used to have the Wheelabrator business. And it's, you know, maybe why was Wheelabrator not the right way for WM to get involved in energy waste? You know what I mean? But RNG is sort of a better angle for that.
So Wheelabrator was before my time. I won't tell you how old I was when you sold Wheelabrator. We don't want to know. So maybe you can just kind of frame why Wheelabrator wasn't a good fit and why, I guess we kind of know why RNG makes sense, maybe why Wheelabrator wasn't a good fit for WM.
I'll take a crack at the first part of that and Tara can jump in. I mean, when you look at the Wheelabrator business, we viewed the front end as very analogous to what we do on the disposal side of the business. So that connection was pretty clear. But there are two things.
One, in terms of a lot of the power purchase agreements that were put in place when those plants were built 35, 40 years ago, some of those were starting to roll off, and the utility business was much different and electric rates were different. Two, the plants were obviously a lot older at the time when we sold it. I think the average age of the plant was probably in the low 30s at the time. And because those power purchase agreements rolled off, it did introduce some volatility into the business.
So we looked at it from the age of fleet and the volatility when those PPAs were rolling off, what we'd have to, you know, reinvest in the fleet and thought that monetizing it. I think we sold it for a little under $2 billion at, if I remember correctly, $1.9 billion and change. And we put that money to work in other places, which were better places than what we thought Wheelabrator was going to do over the next period of time.
I think the difference on the RNG side is that the gas is in the landfill. It's coming out of the landfill one way or the other, right? And as Tara said earlier to another group, we've been in the landfill gas to energy business for 40 years. So the team's doing a phenomenal job.
Believe me, the complexity of the network that Tara is building with the team is much, much different, but we've been managing landfill gas for 40 years, and we've been generating electrons with it. Now we're taking it and we're obviously converting it into clean molecules we can put back in the pipeline and frankly put in our trucks, and I think that's one of the things about the closed loop element of this.
We remind folks of, is over 80% of our collection fleet that's on the street today runs on natural gas, and half of it, over half of it, I think Tara, close to half of it is being fueled by a form of RNG, and as we build these plants out, it gives us the optionality to put more of our own gas either into one of the outside markets or into one of our trucks.
Well said. Nothing to add.
Yeah. I think and then, you know, at the Analyst day, WM had talked about maybe $30 million EBITDA contribution from, I think, someone else operating at your landfills to produce RNG, right? Is that still maybe the best number to use? Have you had a change of thinking around that? You want to do more of that, less of that? Just how do you think about maybe letting someone else come in and kind of do the work for you?
What's interesting is we do have some existing renewable natural gas plants on some of our landfills that really relate to some legacy contracts that we might have had, like our Atascocita landfill in Texas. We have a partner there. The optionality that we have with our landfill gas that is produced, that's incredibly important to us.
We are looking at, is it best to have someone else build plants at some of our other landfills? Should we be doing this ourselves? This really sort of goes to what are the other uses of our free cash flow and what are some of the other growth avenues within our business? Our landfill gas that's left, it's typically at smaller sites. There are economies of scale that exist when we're building a larger landfill gas to renewable natural gas facility.
So we're looking at whether or not we can build them more cost-effectively now that we know everything that goes into the supply chain dynamics, or would it be more effective with the partner? We don't have anything yet to share with the street, but I would imagine by Investor Day, we would.
Gotcha. And maybe another thing we might be able to look forward to the Investor Day is I know WM has sort of the long-term goal to monetize 90% of the landfill gas. I think after your current projects, you're going to be at 65%. So more detail on those efforts may be coming.
Yeah.
Gotcha. Gotcha. And then, Tara, maybe just a kind of a big picture question just on organics, anaerobic digesters. I feel like, you know, everyone kind of has these sustainability goals. They're going to capture all this organic material, but it never really seems to flow through the bottom line, I guess. You know what I mean? Like, where do I model this? So can you just maybe kind of frame the long-term opportunity to compost organics, I guess, for WM?
Sure. We think about organics as a business opportunity in some select markets, not across the whole country yet, but we will monitor that, but where there is supportive legislation. So California is ground zero for that. So is Canada. We're building an anaerobic digester in Quebec at our Ste-Sophie landfill, and that is in response to some of the legislative drivers there. We also are looking at it specifically with our national accounts customers, primarily in the food and retail segment.
There are so many of them that have goals. I want to waste less food, but when I am wasting food, I don't want it to go to a landfill. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach. So there's a lot of attention that goes to anaerobic digesters, but it doesn't have to go to an anaerobic digester. It can go to a composting facility.
That's the majority of what we built out in California is composting infrastructure. And we've done that by building things ourselves and by also acquiring composting assets. So it really is, I would say, a regional play. And we're looking at that in other markets as it's not just legislation, it's also enforcement of the legislation.
Because we've had John and I, you know, sort of started our careers in New York and New Jersey, and New Jersey has had legislation for some time, but it hasn't really been enforced. So we want to make sure that we're not too far ahead of the curve with our investment strategy.
Gotcha. Gotcha. We have a few minutes left. Maybe, John, just a few questions are kind of around the solid waste business into 2025. And we've had this kind of higher-for-longer interest rate environment, and you know, you've been in this business a long time.
Do you think that maybe the private players are sort of getting squeezed by higher interest rates and it's maybe making them more likely to sell or more likely to walk away from parts of their business? Do you think that the bigger picture, do you think the interest rate environment that we have now is maybe changing the behavior and the attitude of the private players, or would you say it's pretty much the same?
I wouldn't say it's necessarily the same, but I mean, it just, it's sort of the math, right? If you look at some of these privately held companies, and some of them are very sophisticated and have sophisticated teams, but they're facing when they're recapitalizing their business, right? When you go from sort of a quote unquote free money up till where it's been higher for longer, there's been a handful of folks we've talked to specifically who have said two things.
One, we're second generation or third generation, and the fourth generation doesn't necessarily want to be in the business. We have heard that. I don't think that's an interest rate issue, but it's a dynamic that's out there. They don't feel the same connection to the business of those who built it or took it over.
And then secondly, because a lot of these companies were able to take advantage of lower interest for a while, gave them the ability to really build up their fleets, build up their asset base. But when that starts to roll, and you're facing the question of how much more in debt service I have to overcome every year just to get even, I do think it has pushed a handful of folks, at least conversationally, to say, we've had some companies that have said,
"We're a great partner, you know, we're a disposal customer, we're never selling." And there's a handful that come to mind, I'll leave nameless, who've come back and said for the reasons you and I are talking about that they've actually elected to sell.
So I think the relationship on the M&A front's important, you know, making sure you have those long-standing relationships with those folks so that if and when they decide to sell, you want to be the first, you want to be the first phone call they make. And I'll give you the one example was Winters Brothers. We were the phone call, knock on wood, because we had known those folks and treated them hopefully really well as a customer when they decided to sell. We were fortunate enough to get the phone call.
Right. And maybe last question here is just thinking about big picture yield outlook for 2025. Can you maybe touch on, I guess I should say that the spread between core price and yield maybe widened a little bit in 4Q, right? So maybe what drove that? I think you touched on the call about some geographical factors. And then if you could also maybe touch on customer churn and rollbacks as well.
Yeah, I think when you look, I'll start with customer rollback and churn. When you look at our pricing discipline, we've always said we're going to take a customer lifetime value approach to how we price. We're going to really stretch the tape out and use a lot of the data and analytical capability we've built to give us better intelligence on how we approach our customers and pricing.
And we go down to the level of, you know, we can tell because of the technology we have, for instance, on our commercial trucks, how many pickups we do, how many missed pickups we had, how many times the cans were overloaded, underloaded.
There's all this math that goes into this decision-making process so that when our folks are making a decision on how to approach the customer, they've got all this data that's distilled down to an actionable set of choices we can make. I think in terms of the spread, we've said customer, we're stretched tape out, customer lifetime value, and I think that's something that we've continued to evolve and get better at.
But I also think what you've seen, commercial and industrial pricing has been strong for long, if you will. We've made a lot of progress on post-collection pricing, specifically MSW. We've made a lot of progress on capturing the value of our post-collection network. What does that mean? Transfer stations, not just for waste, but for recycling.
You've seen core price and yield in MSW, in the transfer station business, and especially in the residential business, all improved, so while we maintained a stable long-term outlook and process around C&I, we've added a level of sophistication, I think, in the other lines of business that's kind of bringing the core price results to what they are. At the same time, we've been very, very focused on the middle of the P&L and not just running faster and jumping higher.
We're trying to use technology to really displace some of the biggest cost headwinds we have, which is the availability and cost of labor. I think you're seeing all that come together where you're starting to see that you saw that spread certainly in 2024 between inflation and core price even widen.
Got it. Got it. Thank you very much. Well, I think that does it, John. Tara, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Thank you.