Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities (Tables)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2020

Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

Liabilities for Landfill and Environmental Remediation Costs

Liabilities for landfill and environmental remediation costs as of December 31 are presented in the table below (in millions):


	2020						2019
			Environmental						Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation		Total		Landfill		Remediation		Total
Current (in accrued liabilities)	$	138	$	26	$	164	$	138	$	27	$	165
Long-term		2,018		204		2,222		1,717		213		1,930
	$	2,156	$	230	$	2,386	$	1,855	$	240	$	2,095

Changes to Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

The changes to landfill and environmental remediation liabilities for the year ended December 31, 2020 are reflected in the table below (in millions):


			Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation
December 31, 2019	$	1,855	$	240
Obligations incurred and capitalized		83		—
Obligations settled		(103)		(23)
Interest accretion		103		2
Revisions in estimates and interest rate assumptions (a) (b)		(27)		11
Acquisitions, divestitures and other adjustments (c)		245		—
December 31, 2020	$	2,156	$	230

(a)

The amount reported for our landfill liabilities includes a reduction of $104 million related to the change in inflation rate from 2.5% to 2.25% as of December 31, 2020, of which $26 million was an immediate reduction to amortization expense. This reduction to landfill liabilities was partially offset by (i) an increase of $69 million primarily from changes in the timing and amount of costs as well as changes in estimates of remaining airspace and (ii) an increase of $8 million due to a business decision to close one of our landfills, which resulted in the acceleration of the expected timing of capping, closure and post-closure activities. This business decision also resulted in an impairment that is discussed in Note 12.

(b)	The amount reported for our environmental remediation liabilities includes an increase of $9 million due to a decrease in the risk-free discount rate used to measure our liabilities from 1.75% at December 31, 2019 to 1.00% at December 31, 2020.

(c)

The amount reported for our landfill liabilities includes (i) $261 million related to our acquisition of Advanced Disposal offset by (ii) a reduction of $17 million for the sale of certain landfills to GFL Environmental Inc. (“GFL Environmental”) in connection with the Advanced Disposal acquisition. These items are discussed further in Note 18.