Casella Waste Systems, Inc. and its predecessor companies were founded in 1975 as Casella's Refuse Removal in Rutland, Vermont. On a chilly day in early April, Doug Casella began picking up garbage from a few customers in the Rutland and Killington region with a pickup truck he had bought with money saved from jobs he’d had as a kid in high school. Because the service was good, the small enterprise grew, and John Casella joined his younger brother a year later to help run the business.
The brothers, influenced not only by that unique spirit of New England frugality, could also see the future – and in 1977 built the company's first, and the state's first, recycling facility in Vermont. It was an inspired vision, one that anticipated the opportunities around resource renewal as well as viewing waste management as an integrated set of services – collection, recycling, transfer, and disposal.
The belief in this approach, and changes in public policy, fueled a period of rapid growth, as the company built an unparalleled waste and resource management infrastructure throughout the northeastern U.S.
In 1997, the company undertook an initial public offering of its stock. Trading of Casella stock began the day after one of the largest collapses in U.S. stock market history, and, despite general investor jitters about the market as a whole, the company's IPO became one of the most successful in industry history. The company is now publicly traded on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol “CWST.”
Since 2000, the company has moved more aggressively to supplement traditional waste management services with its expertise in resource renewal and sustainability. It has consistently led the industry in offering services and infrastructure that help communities and customers sustain – economically as well as environmentally – the planet’s limited resources.
Today, with a clear strategy to serve our customers with integrated services, we continue to lead the solid waste industry with an innovative business strategy that seeks to create sustainable value beyond the traditional waste disposal model. We view waste as a resource for producing renewable energy and as a raw material for manufacturing new products.
And, just like our early days, we believe that if the service is good, the enterprise will thrive.
Mission Statement:
At Casella, we are driven to make a difference by investing in the communities where we live and work through community giving, employee volunteering, and educational outreach.
In 2023, we achieved and surpassed our community giving goal, contributing an estimated $2,200,000 in the form of charitable donations, local sponsorships, and in-kind services. We launched The Casella Foundation in 2024 to support non-profits focused on environmental and natural resource conservation. Beyond this primary focus, we also support organizations advancing neighborhood revitalization, workforce development, and disaster relief.
As part of our drive to make a difference in the communities where we live and work, our teams organize and execute volunteering events including disaster relief efforts, food drives, neighborhood clean-ups, mentor connections, and much more. The Community Champions Network leads these efforts, building our employee volunteering program, with a new goal to invest 21,000 hours per year of our time and expertise in our local communities.
As we work to build the necessary services and infrastructure, we know that sharing our knowledge and expertise across our operating footprint helps us to educate the communities we serve.
Each year, we share our technical knowledge by participating in community events, visiting local schools, lecturing in university classrooms, offering facility tours, serving on industry panels, meeting with municipal governments, testifying to state-level leaders, and more. We deliver education through our social media, blogs, and other outlets to aid our communities.
