Best waste management and recycling stocks by NexusTrade rating

Ratings and dated fundamentals

Inspect the highest-rated company

How is this ranking built?

Every industry list applies the same steps at its own cutoff: industry membership, the latest AI report rating on or before the cutoff, a report age limit, dated market data, then a sort by rating with ties ordered by ticker. The animation steps through them with one real example, the live cybersecurity list refreshed on October 13, 2026.

A live list's cutoff is its refresh time. A past year's list uses December 31 of the year before, and the current year's list uses the time it was generated. A Top N page shows the first N rows of its year's list and exists only when that list has at least N companies.

What best means in this list

This list was refreshed on 2026-11-07 using existing company reports. The report date in each row is the date of the underlying analysis; refreshing the list does not create a new company report.

Best means the highest stored NexusTrade report ratings within this selection. Ratings use the product's 1-to-5 scale. The list sorts by rating from high to low, with ticker order breaking equal-rating ties. A rating summarizes a report; it does not predict a stock's return.

Companies belong to the Waste Management And Recycling classification, based on company products and revenue. Classifications can overlap, so a company may appear in several industry lists.

What the leading companies do

The first 5 companies below lead the ratings in this snapshot; equal ratings are ordered by ticker. Their company profiles describe different businesses even when they share the Waste Management And Recycling selection.

These are company descriptions, not estimates of revenue from this theme. Industry membership does not identify a pure-play business or establish how much sales depend on it. Open the company profile and examine segment disclosures before treating an overlapping classification as equivalent exposure.

1. Republic Services Inc. (RSG): 4 / 5

   Republic Services, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, offers environmental services in the United States and Canada. It is involved in the collection and processing of recyclable, solid waste, and industrial waste materials; transportation and disposal of non-hazardous and hazardous waste streams; and other environmental solutions. Its residential collection services include curbside collection of material for transport to transfer stations, landfills, recycling centers, and organics processing facilities; supply of recycling and waste containers; and renting of compactors. The company also engages in the processing and sale of old corrugated containers, old newsprint, aluminum, glass, and other materials; and provision of landfill services. It serves small-container, large-container, and residential customers. The company was incorporated in 1996 and is based in Phoenix, Arizona.

2. Alamo Group, Inc. (ALG): 3.5 / 5

   Alamo Group Inc. designs, manufactures, and services vegetation management and infrastructure maintenance equipment for governmental, industrial, and agricultural uses worldwide. It operates through two segments, Vegetation Management and Industrial Equipment. The company offers rotary, finishing, flail, disc mowers, remote control, industrial grass, commercial and high end residential zero turn, mechanical boom, quick-attach boom, off-road chassis mounted, and reach mowers; rock removal, landscape and vegetation maintenance equipment, agricultural equipment, street sweepers, solid waste and recycling, and commercial tree care and forestry attachments equipment; and boom-mounted hedge and grass, hedgerow, agricultural seedbed preparation cultivators, rotary, and brush cutters. It also provides front-end loaders, backhoes, rotary tillers, posthole diggers, scraper blades, snow blowers, hydraulic, tractor attachments, cutting blades, tree chippers, stump grinders, mulchers, flails and debarkers, tractor- and truck-mounted mowing, and sugar cane trailers; and engineered underground construction forms. In addition, the company offers hydraulic telescoping booms, catch basin cleaners, roadway debris vacuum systems, sewer cleaners, hydro excavators, truck chassis, vacuum trucks, cleaning systems and trenchers, truck mounted, snow plows and blowers, dump bodies and spreaders, snow throwers, brooms, deicers, brine sprayers, wing systems, spreader bodies, hitches and attachments, loaders and graders, salt spreaders and truck bodies, municipal tractors and attachments, asphalt maintenance patchers, truck-mounted air vacuum, mechanical and replacement brooms, regenerative air sweepers, leaf and debris collection equipment, parking lot sweepers, truck mounted highway crash attenuator trucks, and cone safety and traffic control trucks. The company was founded in 1955 and is headquartered in Seguin, Texas.

3. Clean Harbors, Inc (CLH): 3.5 / 5

   Clean Harbors, Inc. provides environmental and industrial services in the United States and Canada. It operates through two segments: Environmental Services and Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions. The Environmental Services segment collects, transports, treats, and disposes hazardous and non-hazardous waste, such as resource recovery, physical treatment, incineration, landfill disposal, wastewater treatment, lab chemicals disposal, and explosives management services; and offers CleanPack services, including collection, identification, categorization, specialized packaging, transportation, and disposal of laboratory chemicals and household hazardous waste. This segment also provides industrial maintenance and specialty industrial services; and utilizes specialty equipment and resources that performs field services. The Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions segment provides containerized waste, parts-washer, and vacuum services for automobile repair shops, car and truck dealers, metal fabricators, machine manufacturers, fleet maintenance shops, and other automotive, industrial, and retail customers; collects and transports for hazardous and non-hazardous containerized waste for recycling or disposal; machine cleaning and maintenance, and disposal and replenishment of clean solvent or aqueous fluids; and vacuum services to remove solids, residual oily water, and sludge and other fluids from customers' oil/water separators, sumps, and collection tanks, as well as removes and collects waste fluids found at large and small industrial locations, including metal fabricators, auto maintenance providers, and general manufacturers. This segment also manufactures, formulates, and packages lubricants and other products. Clean Harbors, Inc. was incorporated in 1980 and is headquartered in Norwell, Massachusetts.

4. Kadant Inc. (KAI): 3.5 / 5

   Kadant Inc. supplies technologies and engineered systems worldwide. It operates in three segments: Flow Control, Industrial Processing, and Material Handling. The Flow Control segment develops, manufactures, and markets fluid-handling systems and equipment, such as rotary joints, syphons, turbulator bars, expansion joints, and engineered steam and condensate systems; and doctoring, cleaning, and filtration systems and related consumables consisting of doctor systems and holders, doctor blades, cleaning shower and fabric-conditioning systems, forming systems and wear surfaces, and water-filtration systems. The Industrial Processing segment develops, manufactures, and markets ring and rotary debarkers, stranders, chippers, engineered knife systems, industrial automation and control, recycling and approach flow systems, and virgin pulping process equipment for use in the packaging, tissue, wood products, and alternative fuel industries. The Material Handling segment offers conveying and vibratory equipment, and baling products; and manufactures and sells biodegradable and absorbent granules for carriers in agricultural, home lawn and garden, professional lawn, turf, and ornamental applications, as well as for oil and grease absorption. The company markets and sells its products, services, and systems through direct sales, independent sales agents, and distributors. The company was formerly known as Thermo Fibertek, Inc. and changed its name to Kadant Inc. in July 2001. Kadant Inc. was incorporated in 1991 and is headquartered in Westford, Massachusetts.

5. Tetra Tech Inc (TTEK): 3.5 / 5

   Tetra Tech, Inc. provides consulting and engineering services that focuses on water, environment, and sustainable infrastructure. in the United States and internationally. The company operates through two segments, Government Services Group (GSG) and Commercial/International Services Group (CIG). The GSG segment offers early data collection and monitoring, data analysis and information management, science and engineering applied research, engineering design, project management, and operations and maintenance services; and climate change and energy management consulting, as well as greenhouse gas inventory assessment, certification, reduction, and management services. This segment serves federal, state, and local governments; and development agencies in water resources analysis and water management, environmental monitoring, data analytics, government consulting, waste management, and a range of civil infrastructure master planning and engineering design markets. The CIG segment provides early data collection and monitoring, data analysis and information management, feasibility studies and assessments, science and engineering applied research, engineering design, project management, and operations and maintenance services; and environmental remediation and reconstruction services, industrial water treatment, and water reuse services; and engineering services for a wide range of clients with specialized needs, such as data centers, advanced manufacturing, security systems, training and audiovisual facilities, clean rooms, laboratories, medical facilities, and disaster preparedness facilities. This segment serves natural resources, energy, and utilities markets, as well as sustainable infrastructure master planning and engineering design for facilities, transportation, and local development projects. Tetra Tech, Inc. was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Pasadena, California.

Valuation and company size within this selection

These summaries use the 65 displayed companies. Each company retains its own market observation date in the ratings table above. Medians are unweighted; they are not a sector index valuation.

Positive P/E and price-to-book values are summarized separately. Missing, zero and negative values are excluded from those medians, with the included count shown. A lower multiple alone does not establish better value: profitability, growth, debt and business mix can differ.

Other business classifications in the list

A company can appear in several product and revenue classifications. These overlapping memberships help identify different business mixes to investigate; they are not verified revenue shares or mutually exclusive subindustries.

Dates and coverage

Report dates range from 2025-12-31 to 2026-10-13. Market observations range from 2026-11-06 to 2026-11-06. These dates may differ across companies. Daily closes are not synchronized live quotes.

The selection includes 1 companies without a report, 0 with invalid latest rating metadata, 0 with older reports, 3 with missing required fundamentals and 0 with out-of-date market observations. Missing companies receive no substitute score.

How the ranking is built

The ranking uses the latest stored report at or before the refresh cutoff for each active eligible company. The report date, fiscal year/period and producing model remain visible. The latest invalid score is excluded; an older favorable score does not replace it. Publication policy stock-ratings-v1 accepts report ages up to 550 days and market observations up to 10 calendar days, with a positive close and market capitalization. Optional missing ratios remain not reported.

Report ages can differ substantially, particularly between annual and quarterly reports. Different producing models may also use different judgments. Read the date, fiscal period and model before comparing scores. Private report analysis and account data are not published here.

A refresh reads existing reports and market data. It does not rerun a model or create a new analysis. Compare business fundamentals and your own research constraints alongside the score before making a decision.