BASIS OF PRESENTATION

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2019

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

BASIS OF PRESENTATION

BASIS OF PRESENTATION

Casella Waste Systems, Inc. (“Parent”), its consolidated subsidiaries and any partially owned entities over which it has a controlling financial interest (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, as well as recyclables purchased from third-parties. We manage our solid waste operations on a geographic basis through two regional operating segments, our Eastern and Western regions, each of which provides a full range of solid waste services, and our larger-scale recycling and commodity brokerage operations through our Recycling segment. Organics services, ancillary operations, along with major account and industrial services are included in our Other segment. Effective January 1, 2020, we reorganized our operating segments as follows: we aligned our organics services and our major account and industrial services, with our Recycling segment to form the Resource Solutions segment, thus creating a single resource renewal-focused segment. We also moved our ancillary transportation services, which were previously included in our Other segment, into our Western region. Accordingly, as of January 1, 2020, our operating segments consist of the Eastern and Western regions and Resource Solutions.

The accompanying consolidated financial statements, which include the accounts of the Parent, our wholly-owned subsidiaries and any partially owned entities over which we have a controlling financial interest, 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.