Financial research concept

Waste Average Yield: Realized Environmental Services Pricing

Waste average yield measures revenue growth from changes in average price per unit of service, helping investors distinguish realized pricing from headline rate increases and volume changes.

By Lee BaileyPublished Sep 18, 2026

Waste average yield measures revenue growth attributable to changes in the average price earned per unit of environmental service, under the issuer's reporting definition.

Republic Services defines average yield as revenue growth from the change in average price per unit of service, expressed as a percentage.

Yield is closer to realized pricing than core price

Core price focuses on rate increases and fees.

Average yield captures the revenue effect after the business experiences customer and service-mix changes, new and lost business, and other factors that affect average price per unit.

Republic reported second-quarter 2026 average yield of 4.0% on related-business revenue, compared with core price of 6.4%.

WM reported second-quarter 2026 collection and disposal yield of 3.6%.

Yield and volume should be separated

A simplified organic revenue bridge is:

organic revenue growth ≈ average yield + volume effect + other defined items

If yield rises 4% while volume falls 2%, revenue can still grow, but the growth has a different quality than a 4% yield increase accompanied by stable volume.

This is why Waste Collection and Disposal Volume belongs beside yield.

Mix can move yield

Average yield can change because customers purchase different services, not only because posted rates increase.

Residential, commercial, industrial, transfer, and landfill services have different prices and economics.

Republic separately reports yield by line of business, including residential collection, small-container collection, large-container collection, municipal solid waste landfill, and construction and demolition waste.

That detail helps investors distinguish broad pricing power from favorable service mix.

Compare definitions before comparing companies

Environmental-services companies do not always use identical revenue bases.

Republic distinguishes total revenue from related-business revenue. WM separately discusses collection and disposal yield. Fuel recovery fees, recycled commodities, environmental solutions, and other items can be included or excluded differently.

The safest comparison starts with the issuer's stated denominator and exclusions.

Primary-source examples

Waste average yield is most useful as a realized price-and-mix measure, not as a pure rate-increase metric.

Part of the Waste & Environmental Services Operating Model

Connect price, realized yield, service volume, internalization, landfill tonnage, and recycled commodity prices to understand environmental-services economics.

How the model fits together
  • Price and service volume: Collection and disposal volume captures service activity, while core price and average yield separate announced pricing from realized revenue effects. Mix and service changes can make average yield differ from core price.
  • Network capture and commodity exposure: Internalization shows how much collected waste stays within owned disposal assets, landfill depletable tons show disposal usage, and recycled commodity price per ton adds a separate commodity-sensitive earnings driver.

See It in Company Research

These companies are examples of how the concept is reported or discussed in public filings. Definitions can differ by issuer; these links open company research rather than a normalized metric comparison.

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