Veolia to take over Alcoa hazardous waste treatment site

Veolia, through its subsidiary Veolia North America, announced Jan. 2 that it has signed an agreement to take over Alcoa’s hazardous waste treatment site located in Gum Springs, Arkansas. With this operation, Paris-based Veolia says it is continuing the global expansion of its hazardous waste treatment and recycling activity and adding a flagship site to its existing portfolio.

The facility, located on a 1,350-acre site, currently employs 73 people. The Gum Springs facility has traditionally treated spent pot liner, a hazardous waste byproduct of the aluminum production process, for the North American smelter industry. As part of its global growth strategy in difficult-to-treat pollutions, Veolia will be looking at expanding the type of waste, as well as volume, handled at the site, as it is already permitted for the treatment and final disposal of nearly all categories of liquid and solid hazardous waste, the company says. While remaining a service provider to Alcoa through a multi-year agreement, the facility will also be expanding its services to customers throughout North America.

Veolia treats and recycles around 6 million tons of hazardous waste annually; has over 100,000 industrial, commercial or household clients; and employs 8,000 who operate a network of more than 140 facilities on five continents. In Europe, Veolia operates the two biggest hazardous waste treatment sites of the continent.

In North America, Veolia’s hazardous waste operations support industries from pharmaceutical to petrochemical and other generators. The company operates four major incineration facilities on two sites in Texas and Illinois. Whenever possible, Veolia North America makes it a priority to recover and regenerate materials, like it does with sulfuric acid, one of the most important compounds made by the chemical industry used to manufacture hundreds of compounds needed by almost every industry, the company says.

The integration of the Gum Springs facility and its disposal site into Veolia’s North American network will significantly increase the company’s North American treatment capacities and contribute to Veolia’s ambition of developing state-of-the-art solutions to protect the environment, the company says.

This transaction is valued at $250 million and closing is expected in the first quarter of 2020.