SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2021

Accounting Policies [Abstract]

SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES

The Company's significant accounting policies are described in Note 2, "Significant Accounting Policies," in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020. There have been no material changes in these policies or their application except for the changes described below.

Changes in Operating Segments

During the first quarter of 2021, the Company reorganized its Safety-Kleen business. The collection services for waste oil, used oil filters, antifreeze and related items and bulk blended oil sales operations were combined with the Safety-Kleen Oil business to form the Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions business. Under this structure, Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions will encompass both sides of the spread the Company manages in its re-refinery business, and the Company expects this change to drive additional growth in its sustainable lubricant products and related services.

Concurrently with this change, the Company consolidated the Safety-Kleen Environmental branches' core offerings, including containerized waste, parts washer and vacuum services, into the legacy Clean Harbors Environmental Services sales and service operations. The Company expects this change to foster enhanced cross-selling opportunities within the environmental businesses and increase market presence with small quantity generators of hazardous waste.

In restructuring the operations of the Company in this manner, the information that the chief operating decision maker regularly reviews for purposes of allocating resources and assessing performance changed to conform to this new operating structure of the business and the Company reevaluated the identification of its operating segments. In accordance with ASC 280, Segment Reporting, Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions are the Company's operating segments and reportable segments starting in the first quarter of 2021, with the operations not managed through the Company's operating segments described above continuing to be recorded as Corporate Items. See Note 17, "Segment Reporting" for more information. The amounts presented for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2020 and any segment information presented as of December 31, 2020 have been recast to reflect the impact of such changes. In addition, certain intercompany transactions previously recorded in Corporate Items have been allocated to the segments. These reclassifications and adjustments had no effect on the consolidated statements of operations, consolidated statements of comprehensive income (loss), consolidated statements of cash flows or consolidated statements of stockholders' equity for any of the periods presented.