Stericycle — BrandWiki

Stericycle

Overview

Stericycle, Inc.

type	Subsidiary
founded	1989
location city	Bannockburn, Illinois
location country	U.S.
industry	Services: compliant regulated waste disposal, secure information destruction services, recall services, sustainability services, communications services
revenue	US$2.66 billion (2023)‡R1R‡
equity	US$2.52 billion (2023)‡R1R‡
num employees	~13,500‡R1R‡
num employees year	2023
assets	US$5.35 billion (2023)‡R1R‡
operating income	US$77.3 million - AOI US$315.5 million (2023)‡R1R‡
parent	Waste Management, Inc.
website	https://stericycle.com

Stericycle, Inc. is an American compliance company that specializes in collecting and disposing regulated medical waste, such as medical waste and sharps, pharmaceuticals and controlled substances, trace chemotherapy waste, and pathological waste. It also provides related education and training services. The company was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Bannockburn, Illinois, with more bases of operation around North America and Europe.

Stericycle was publicly traded on the NASDAQ starting in 1996,[2] until Waste Management acquired the company in 2024.

Overview

Stericycle, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, offers regulated waste management services, sharps disposal containers to reduce the risk of needlestick injuries, healthcare compliance services, and drug disposal services. In addition, with the acquisition of Shred-it in 2015, Stericycle also offers secure information destruction services including document shredding and hard drive destruction.

The company serves healthcare facilities such as hospitals, blood banks, and pharmaceutical manufacturers. Stericycle also serves myriad small businesses, which include outpatient clinics, medical and dental offices, veterinary and animal hospitals, funeral homes, home healthcare agencies, body art studios, and long-term and sub-acute care facilities.

Services

Stericycle offers the following types of specialized waste management:

Beyond services related to healthcare wastes, in some markets the company has expanded its offerings to include management of certain hazardous wastes as well as patient transport and medical courier services. Stericycle offers secure information destruction, for both paper and hard drive, through Shred-it.

The company also offers compliance training primarily through online courses focused on applying industry regulations related to information security, human resources, medical billing, and other topics.[25] They have also developed training software related to compliance.[26]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company managed the transportation, treatment, and disposal of potentially infectious items. The company developed strategies for PPE disposal, including a waste pickup and mailback option.[27] In 2021, Stericycle and UPS partnered through UPS Healthcare, creating a system to manage the reverse logistics of medical waste, including the transportation, treatment, and disposal of waste.[28]

Beginning in 2021, Stericycle has published an annual Healthcare Workplace Safety Trend Report, which analyzes issues within the medical workplace, including comparisons of day-to-day stress on a yearly basis, and the importance of medical waste management.[29]

Regulated medical waste management
Hazardous waste management
Sharps waste management
Pharmaceutical waste or environmentally persistent pharmaceutical pollutants
Drug disposal
Integrated Waste Stream services – coordinating multiple waste streams for one entity[24]

UK

The company has a contract for collection and disposal services to around 700 GP practices across Hampshire and Isle of Wight, Buckinghamshire, Surrey, Sussex, Oxfordshire and Berkshire and acute NHS trusts in England. In 2020 it suffered from capacity problems and failed to collect clinical waste routinely from 139 practices during September and October. 245 collections were missed. They said that the NHS was producing significantly higher volumes of clinical waste than expected because of the amount of Personal protective equipment being used.[30]

Community involvement

Opioid crisis

In 2018, Stericycle joined the National Safety Council as the medicine disposal partner for a nationwide campaign. Stericycle served as a leading voice on safe disposal practices giving away thousands of Seal&Send Mail Back Envelopes consumers could drop in any mailbox.[31]

The Stop Everyday Killers campaign began with the unveiling of Prescribed to Death: A Memorial to the Victims of the Opioid Crisis in Chicago. The exhibit includes a memorial wall made of pills carved with faces that represent the 22,000 people lost last year to prescription opioid overdose.[32]

In 2019, Stericycle partnered with the National Safety Council to launch the Opioids at Work Employer Toolkit.[33]

In 2020, Stericycle partnered with the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP) on a program, focusing on improving water quality through the removal of unused prescription opiates. RCAP distributed 10,000 of Stericycle’s medication mail-back envelopes to rural communities in the United States, allowing people to mail back their unused medicines for destruction and disposal through regulated means.[34]

SteriCares Hardship Fund

Stericycle operates a fund that allows employees to support other employees in times of hardship. Stericycle employees have helped over 250 Stericycle families with over $515,000 in grants since 2016. During the fund's biggest year ever in 2017, employees raised $160,000 alone in emergency relief following Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, and Hurricane Maria. The company currently operates the fund in the US, Canada,[35][13] and Ireland.[36]

After Hurricane Harvey hit Houston in 2017, Stericycle team members amassed three truckloads of donations that were distributed to families across five Stericycle sites in Houston.[37][38] After Hurricane Maria, Stericycle facilities in Puerto Rico

Global food aid

Since 2011, Stericycle has supported Feed My Starving Children, an organization benefiting malnourished children around the world.[40]

American Diabetes Association partnership

Stericycle partnered with the American Diabetes Association (ADA) in 2019. Stericycle's partnership with the ADA includes providing consumer-based education, raising awareness and sponsoring key events, such as the Tour de Cure.[41]