XML 36 R23.htm IDEA: XBRL DOCUMENT
v3.25.1

ACCOUNTING CHANGES (Policies) | 3 Months Ended
--- | ---
Mar. 31, 2025
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. We provide resource management expertise and services to residential, commercial, municipal, institutional and industrial customers, primarily in the areas of solid waste collection and disposal, transfer, recycling and organics services. We provide integrated solid waste services in ten states: Vermont, New Hampshire, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland, with our headquarters located in Rutland, Vermont. We manage our solid waste operations on a geographic basis through three regional operating segments, the Eastern, Western and Mid-Atlantic regions, each of which provides a comprehensive range of non-hazardous solid waste services. We manage our resource renewal operations through the Resource Solutions operating segment, which leverages our core competencies in materials processing, industrial recycling, organics and resource management service offerings to deliver a comprehensive solution for our larger commercial, municipal, institutional and industrial customers that have more diverse waste and recycling needs. 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. “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024 (“fiscal year 2024”), which was filed with the SEC on February 18, 2025 (“2024 Form 10-K”).
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, including normal recurring and nonrecurring adjustments, as applicable, necessary for a fair statement of the financial position, results of operations and cash flows for the periods presented. The results for the three months ended March 31, 2025 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, 2025 through the date of filing of the consolidated financial statements with the SEC on this Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. Except as disclosed, no material subsequent events have occurred since March 31, 2025 through the date of this filing that would require recognition or adjustments to our disclosures in our consolidated financial statements.
Accounting Standards Adopted and Pending Adoption | The following table provides a brief description of Accounting Standards Updates (“ASU”) to the Accounting Standards Codification (“ASC”) issued by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) and deemed to have a possible material impact on our consolidated financial statements based on current account balances and activity:
Standard |  | Description |  | Effect on the Financial Statements or Other Significant Matters
Accounting standards issued pending adoption as of March 31, 2025
ASU No. 2023-09: Improvements to Income Tax Disclosures (Topic 740) |  | Requires entities to provide additional disclosure related to the transparency and decision usefulness of income tax disclosures, including additional disclosure around the rate reconciliation and income taxes paid. |  | We do not expect the adoption of this guidance to have a material impact on our consolidated financial statements, however, the adoption of this guidance will have an impact on income tax disclosures within the accompanying notes to our consolidated financial statements. This guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2024, with early adoption permitted.
ASU No. 2024-03: Improvements to Income Statement - Expense Disaggregation Disclosures (Subtopic 220-40) |  | Requires entities to provide additional disclosure related to more detailed information about specific types of expenses contained in commonly presented expense captions on the statements of operations. |  | We are currently assessing the provisions of this guidance and expect that its adoption will have an impact on certain expense category disclosures within our consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes. This guidance is effective for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2026, and interim periods within fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2027.
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 Value Our financial instruments include cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, 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 derivatives, trade payables and debt. The carrying values of cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, 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 derivatives included in the Level 2 tier below is calculated using discounted cash flow valuation methodologies based upon Term SOFR yield curves that are observable at commonly quoted intervals for the full term of the swaps. We recognize all derivatives accounted for on the consolidated balance sheets at fair value.
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 three regional operating segments, our Eastern, Western and Mid-Atlantic regions. In the three months ended March 31, 2025, we moved certain operations between our regional operating segments to align geographically, including a landfill that we own from the Western region to the Mid-Atlantic region and a collection and transfer station operation from our Western region to our Eastern region. Certain prior period amounts have been reclassified between regional operating segments to conform to the current period presentation. Revenues associated with our solid waste operations are derived mainly from solid waste collection and disposal services, including landfill, transfer station and transportation services, landfill gas-to-energy services, and processing services in the eastern United States. Our Resource Solutions operating segment leverages our core competencies in materials processing, industrial recycling, organics and resource management service offerings to deliver a comprehensive solution for our larger commercial, municipal, institutional and industrial customers that have more diverse waste and recycling needs. Revenues associated with our Resource Solutions operations are comprised of processing services and our National Accounts business. Revenues from processing services are derived from customers in the form of processing fees, tipping fees, commodity sales, and organic material sales. Revenues from our National Accounts business are derived from brokerage services and overall resource management services providing a wide range of environmental services and resource management solutions to large and complex organizations, as well as traditional collection, disposal and recycling services provided to large account multi-site customers. Legal, tax, information technology, human resources, certain finance and accounting and other administrative functions are included in our Corporate Entities segment, which is not a reportable operating segment. Operating income by segment reported in the three months ended March 31, 2024 has been updated to conform with the presentation for the three months ended March 31, 2025, which includes the movement of certain operations described above and does not have Corporate Entities costs allocated to our reportable operating segments. See Note 5, Goodwill and Intangible Assets for the breakout of goodwill by reportable operating segment. The accounting policies of our reportable operating segments are the same as those described in Item 8. “Financial Statements and Supplementary Data” of our 2024 Form 10-K. Our President is our chief operating decision maker (“CODM”). Our CODM uses operating income in evaluating reportable operating segment performance in order to properly allocate resources and make key operating decisions. Intercompany revenues and expenses are eliminated in the computation of consolidated gross revenues and operating income. The CODM uses operating income for each reportable operating segment in the annual budget and forecasting process and considers budget-to-actual and forecast-to-actual variances on a monthly basis when making decisions about the allocation of operating and capital resources to each reportable operating segment.

X
- References No definition available. + Details
Name: | us-gaap_AccountingChangesAndErrorCorrectionsAbstract
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | xbrli:stringItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration

X
- Definition Disclosure of accounting policy for legal obligation associated with retirement of long-lived asset that results from acquisition, construction, or development or from normal operation of long-lived asset. Excludes environmental remediation liability from improper or other-than-normal operation of long-lived asset, obligation arising in connection with leased property that meets definition of lease payments or variable lease payments and from plan to sell or otherwise dispose of a long-lived asset. + References Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 410 -SubTopic 20 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/410-20/tableOfContent + Details
Name: | us-gaap_AssetRetirementObligationsPolicy
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | dtr-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration

X
- Definition Disclosure of accounting policy for basis of accounting, or basis of presentation, used to prepare the financial statements (for example, US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, Other Comprehensive Basis of Accounting, IFRS). + References No definition available. + Details
Name: | us-gaap_BasisOfAccountingPolicyPolicyTextBlock
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | dtr-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration

X
- Definition Disclosure of accounting policy for determining the fair value of financial instruments. + References Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 1 -SubTopic 10 -Topic 825 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482907/825-10-50-1 + Details
Name: | us-gaap_FairValueOfFinancialInstrumentsPolicy
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | dtr-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration

X
- Definition Disclosure of accounting policy pertaining to new accounting pronouncements that may impact the entity's financial reporting. Includes, but is not limited to, quantification of the expected or actual impact. + References No definition available. + Details
Name: | us-gaap_NewAccountingPronouncementsPolicyPolicyTextBlock
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | dtr-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration

X
- Definition Disclosure of accounting policy for segment reporting. + References Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 41 -Subparagraph (a) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-41 Reference 2: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/exampleRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 55 -Paragraph 47 -Subparagraph (bb) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482785/280-10-55-47 Reference 3: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 29 -Subparagraph (f) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-29 Reference 4: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/exampleRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 55 -Paragraph 54 -Subparagraph (b) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482785/280-10-55-54 Reference 5: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 36 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-36 Reference 6: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/exampleRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 55 -Paragraph 47 -Subparagraph (b) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482785/280-10-55-47 Reference 7: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 29 -Subparagraph (d) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-29 Reference 8: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 29 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-29 Reference 9: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 29 -Subparagraph (a) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-29 Reference 10: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 29 -Subparagraph (b) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-29 Reference 11: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 29 -Subparagraph (c) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-29 Reference 12: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Topic 280 -SubTopic 10 -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 29 -Subparagraph (e) -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482810/280-10-50-29 + Details
Name: | us-gaap_SegmentReportingPolicyPolicyTextBlock
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | dtr-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration

X
- Definition Disclosure of accounting policy for reporting subsequent events. + References No definition available. + Details
Name: | us-gaap_SubsequentEventsPolicyPolicyTextBlock
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | dtr-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration

X
- Definition Disclosure of accounting policy for the use of estimates in the preparation of financial statements in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles. + References Reference 1: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 275 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 9 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482861/275-10-50-9 Reference 2: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 275 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 4 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482861/275-10-50-4 Reference 3: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 1 -Subparagraph (b) -SubTopic 10 -Topic 275 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482861/275-10-50-1 Reference 4: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 1 -Subparagraph (c) -SubTopic 10 -Topic 275 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482861/275-10-50-1 Reference 5: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 11 -SubTopic 10 -Topic 275 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482861/275-10-50-11 Reference 6: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/disclosureRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Section 50 -Paragraph 12 -SubTopic 10 -Topic 275 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482861/275-10-50-12 Reference 7: http://fasb.org/us-gaap/role/ref/legacyRef -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 275 -SubTopic 10 -Section 50 -Paragraph 8 -Publisher FASB -URI https://asc.fasb.org/1943274/2147482861/275-10-50-8 + Details
Name: | us-gaap_UseOfEstimates
Namespace Prefix: | us-gaap_
Data Type: | dtr-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type: | na
Period Type: | duration