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ACCOUNTING CHANGES (Policies) | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2021
Accounting Changes and Error Corrections [Abstract] |
Basis of Accounting | Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (“Parent”), and its subsidiaries (collectively, “we”, “us” or “our”), is a regional, vertically integrated solid waste services company that provides collection, transfer, disposal, landfill, landfill gas-to-energy, recycling and organics services in the northeastern United States. We market recyclable metals, aluminum, plastics, paper, and corrugated cardboard, which have been processed at our recycling facilities or purchased from third-parties. We manage our solid waste operations on a geographic basis through two regional operating segments, the Eastern and Western regions, each of which provides a full range of solid waste services. We manage our resource-renewal operations through the Resource Solutions operating segment, which includes our larger-scale recycling and commodity brokerage operations along with our organics services and large scale commercial and industrial services. Legal, tax, information technology, human resources, certain finance and accounting and other administrative functions are included in our Corporate Entities segment. The accompanying unaudited consolidated financial statements, which include the accounts of the Parent and our wholly-owned subsidiaries, have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (“GAAP”) pursuant to the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). All significant intercompany accounts and transactions are eliminated in consolidation. Investments in entities in which we do not have a controlling financial interest are accounted for under either the equity method or the cost method of accounting, as appropriate. Our significant accounting policies are more fully discussed in Item 8 of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020 ("fiscal year 2020"), which was filed with the SEC on February 19, 2021.
Use of Estimates | Preparation of our consolidated financial statements in accordance with GAAP requires management to make certain estimates and assumptions. These estimates and assumptions affect the accounting for and recognition and disclosure of assets, liabilities, equity, revenues and expenses. We must make these estimates and assumptions because certain information that we use is dependent on future events, cannot be calculated with a high degree of precision given the available data, or simply cannot be readily calculated. In the opinion of management, these consolidated financial statements include all adjustments, which include normal recurring and nonrecurring adjustments, necessary for a fair presentation of the financial position, results of operations and cash flows for the periods presented. The results for the three months ended March 31, 2021 may not be indicative of the results for any other interim period or the entire fiscal year.
Subsequent Events | We have evaluated subsequent events or transactions that have occurred after the consolidated balance sheet date of March 31, 2021 through the date of filing of the consolidated financial statements with the SEC on this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. We have determined that there are no subsequent events that require disclosure in this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q.
Accounting Standards Adopted and Pending Adoption |
Standard |  | Description |  | Effect on the Financial Statements or Other Significant Matters
Accounting standards adopted effective January 1, 2021
ASU No. 2019-12: Income Taxes (Topic 740) |  | Reduces the complexity over accounting for income taxes by removing certain exceptions and amending guidance to improve consistent application of accounting over income taxes. |  | This guidance did not have a material impact on our consolidated financial statements and related disclosures upon adoption, but may in the future. This guidance was effective January 1, 2021.
A table providing a brief description of recent ASUs to the ASC issued by the FASB that are pending adoption and deemed to have a possible material impact on our consolidated financial statements based on current account balances and activity follows:
Standard |  | Description |  | Effect on the Financial Statements or Other Significant Matters
Accounting standards issued pending adoption
ASU No. 2020-04: Reference Rate Reform (Topic 848), as amended through January 2021 |  | Provides temporary optional guidance to ease the potential burden in applying GAAP to contract modifications and hedging relationships that reference London Inter-Bank Offered Rate ("LIBOR") or another reference rate expected to be discontinued, subject to meeting certain criteria. |  | We currently have interest rate derivative agreements with hedging relationships that reference LIBOR which extend past the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021. We are currently assessing the provisions of this guidance as LIBOR is still in place and do not expect that its adoption will have a material impact on our consolidated financial statements and related disclosures. This guidance will be in effect from March 12, 2020 through December 31, 2022.
Accrued Final Capping, Closure and Post Closure | Accrued final capping, closure and post-closure costs include the current and non-current portion of costs associated with obligations for final capping, closure and post-closure of our landfills. We estimate our future final capping, closure and post-closure costs in order to determine the final capping, closure and post-closure expense per ton of waste placed into each landfill. The anticipated time frame for paying these costs varies based on the remaining useful life of each landfill as well as the duration of the post-closure monitoring period.
Fair Value of Financial Instruments | We use a three-tier fair value hierarchy to classify and disclose all assets and liabilities measured at fair value on a recurring basis, as well as assets and liabilities measured at fair value on a non-recurring basis, in periods subsequent to their initial measurement. These tiers include: Level 1, defined as quoted market prices in active markets for identical assets or liabilities; Level 2, defined as inputs other than Level 1 that are observable, either directly or indirectly, such as quoted prices for similar assets or liabilities; and Level 3, defined as unobservable inputs that are not corroborated by market data. We use valuation techniques that maximize the use of market prices and observable inputs and minimize the use of unobservable inputs. In measuring the fair value of our financial assets and liabilities, we rely on market data or assumptions that we believe market participants would use in pricing an asset or a liability. Assets and Liabilities Accounted for at Fair ValueOur financial instruments include cash and cash equivalents, accounts receivable, restricted investment securities held in trust on deposit with various banks as collateral for our obligations relative to our landfill final capping, closure and post-closure costs, interest rate swaps, trade payables and long-term debt. The carrying values of cash and cash equivalents, accounts receivable and trade payables approximate their respective fair values due to their short-term nature. The fair value of restricted investment securities held in trust, which are valued using quoted market prices, are included as restricted assets in the Level 1 tier below. The fair value of the interest rate swaps included in the Level 2 tier below is calculated using discounted cash flow valuation methodologies based upon the one-month LIBOR yield curves that are observable at commonly quoted intervals for the full term of the swaps.
Segment Reporting | We report selected information about our reportable operating segments in a manner consistent with that used for internal management reporting. We classify our solid waste operations on a geographic basis through regional operating segments, our Western and Eastern regions. Revenues associated with our solid waste operations are derived mainly from solid waste collection and disposal, landfill, landfill gas-to-energy, processing, transfer and recycling services in the northeastern United States. Effective January 1, 2021, we reorganized the Resource Solutions operating segment, which includes our larger-scale recycling and commodity brokerage operations along with our organics services and large scale commercial and industrial services, from our historical lines-of-service of recycling, organics and customer solutions into two lines-of-service: processing and non-processing. Revenues from processing services are derived from municipalities and customers in the form of processing fees, tipping fees, commodity sales, and organic material sales. Revenues from non-processing services are derived from brokerage services; overall resource management services providing a wide range of environmental services and zero waste solutions to large and complex organizations; and traditional collection, disposal and recycling services provided to large account multi-site customers. Revenues classification by service line reported in the three months ended March 31, 2020 has been reclassified to conform with the presentation for the three months ended March 31, 2021. Legal, tax, information technology, human resources, certain finance and accounting and other administrative functions are included in our Corporate Entities segment.

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