Stericycle


Stericycle is a compliance company that specializes in collecting and disposing regulated substances, such as medical waste and sharps, pharmaceuticals, hazardous waste, and providing services for recalled and expired goods. It also provides related education and training services, and patient communication services. The company was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Bannockburn, Illinois, with many more bases of operation around the world, including Medical waste incinerators in Utah and North Carolina.

Overview

Stericycle, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, offers regulated waste management services, sharps disposal containers to reduce the risk of needlesticks, healthcare compliance services, pharmaceutical disposal, and regulated returns management services for expired or recalled products through incineration processes. In addition, with the acquisition of Shred-it in 2015, Stericycle also offers secure information destruction services including document and hard drive destruction.
The company serves healthcare facilities such as hospitals, blood banks, pharmaceutical manufacturers,. Stericycle also serves myriad small businesses, which include outpatient clinics, medical and dental offices, abortion clinics, veterinary and animal hospitals, funeral homes, home healthcare agencies, body art studios, and long-term and sub-acute care facilities. Medical device manufacturers, consumer goods manufacturers, and retailers are also key customers.
Stericycle has been harshly criticized by residents living near their incinerators and environmentalists across the globe. Currently, Stericycle is being investigated by the state of Utah for burning hazardous, radioactive waste above legal levels at their North Salt Lake location. The investigations also are in response to Stericycle's alleged falsification of records to hide the alleged illegal quantity burning near Foxboro Elementary in North Salt Lake.

International operations

Stericycle has a presence in 21 countries with approximately 640 locations worldwide. Approximately 20% of the company's revenue comes from its international operations. Full services are offered the U.S., Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Spain. Stericycle offers all services, except for hazardous waste management, in the United Kingdom. Only regulated waste operations are in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, South Korea, and Romania. Only secure information destruction services are provided in Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, and Singapore. Secure information destruction services under the Shred-it brand are also provided in the United Arab Emirates through a joint venture with the company's portion of income reported as an equity investment.

Leadership

Cindy Miller joined Stericycle in October 2018 as President and Chief Operating Officer, and became Chief Executive Officer in May 2019. She was preceded in her role by Charlie Alutto, and prior to that, by Mark Miller, who took over from founder Dr. James Sharp in 1989. Stericycle has been publicly traded on the NASDAQ since 1996 and has 10 people on its board of directors.

History

Stericycle was founded in 1989 by Dr. James Sharp based on his business plan to address the Syringe Tide, where hypodermic needles and other medical waste washed up to the shores of New York and New Jersey. The Syringe Tide led to the Medical Waste Tracking Act, signed in 1988, establishing regulated medical waste management as an industry.
In 1992, Mark Miller stepped in as President and CEO, and as a result of Miller's leadership, Stericycle grew rapidly, going public in 1996 on the NASDAQ. Stericycle began to expand internationally in 1998, starting with Mexico and Canada. In 1999, Stericycle acquired 200,000 customers from Allied Waste Industries after Allied acquired Browning Ferris Industries.
The company's international business began in 1997 with a joint venture in Mexico. Since then, Stericycle has created services, tools and resources for healthcare professionals not only in the United States and Mexico, but also in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ireland, Japan, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
In 1999, Stericycle began offering safety and compliance training services with the launch of its Stericycle Steri-Safe OSHA Compliance program.

Expansion

In the 2000s, Stericycle achieved growth through launching and/or acquiring complementary business lines, as well as continued international expansion. In 2003, Stericycle entered sharps waste management, acquiring Scherer Healthcare's existing practice and occasionally referring to parts of the service as “Bio Systems” in markets like Ireland. In 2004, Stericycle began providing medical waste solutions in the United Kingdom with more international growth following. In 2008, Stericycle acquired its first hazardous waste removal company and in 2010 started its Communications Solutions business line. The acquisition of PSC Environmental Solutions in 2014 led to the formal establishment of Environmental Solutions focused on hazardous waste. Finally, Stericycle's largest acquisition to date, Shred-it, occurred in 2015, for US$2.3 billion.
In 2010, Stericycle began to include patient notification services with the acquisition of NotifyMD. Several other acquisitions followed, giving Stericycle an interest in telephone support services for physician offices.
In 2014, it acquired PSC Environmental Services LLC in a deal worth $275 million to form . This enabled expansion in hazardous waste management.
In 2015, it acquired Shred-it International in a deal worth $2.3 billion.
The company lost a contract to provide clinical waste services to GPs and pharmacies in Cumbria and north-east England in April 2017, when their competitor, Healthcare Environment Services put in a substantially cheaper offer, of £310,000, than theirs of £479,999. Stericycle then contrived a legal challenge against NHS England’s decision which was dismissed by the High Court of Justice in July 2018, and the company's behaviour severely criticised. Their commercial director Lindsay Dransfield was described as “a broadly unsatisfactory witness”. The company said it intended to appeal.
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.
In October 2018, Cindy Miller became President and Chief Operating Officer of Stericycle, and became Chief Executive Officer in May 2019.

Services

Stericycle offers the following types of specialized waste management:
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 patient communications. They have also developed training software related to compliance. Additionally, they have a communications team that coordinates call centers in emergencies and assists with waste management messaging.

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&SendSM MailBack Envelopes consumers could drop in any mailbox.
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.
In 2019, Stericycle partnered with the National Safety Council to launch the Opioids at Work Employer Toolkit.
;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 and Canada, and plans to expand it to Latin America in 2019.
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. After Hurricane Maria, Stericycle facilities in Puerto Rico became gathering zones for hot meals, water, laundry service, showers, and shelter to team members who lost their homes.
;Global food aid
Since 2011, Stericycle has supported Feed My Starving Children, an organization benefiting malnourished children around the world. In 2018, Stericycle team members packed over 291 cases totaling nearly 63,000 meals, which will feed over 170 children.
;American Diabetes Association partnership
Stericycle has also partnered with the American Diabetes Association 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.

Controversy

Handling of abortion remains and lawsuit

Stericycle serves abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood, and has handled due to allegations of failure to obey the law regarding fetus disposal in at least one jurisdiction, 2) with pro-life groups that believe a fetus is a person, and 3) because Stericycle sued a pro-life group for disseminating information about its fetus disposal.
In 2011, Stericycle agreed to pay a fine of $34,090 in Texas to settle allegations that its practices in disposing of fetuses violated state regulations.
As of 2017, Stericycle claims that they no longer handle fetus remains, however an investigation in 2019 by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division provided evidence that fetus disposal may continue to be a part of Stericycle's business.
Evidence of Stericycle's past disposal of fetus remains surfaced in a 2010 grand jury investigation into the abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, which detailed the fetus storage problems encountered by Gosnell's practice after he failed to pay his Stericycle bill.
An organization called the Campaign to Stop Stericycle, has compiled various evidence that Stericycle handles aborted remains.
In March 2016, Stericycle sued a pro-life group, Created Equal, that was raising awareness of Stericycle's ties to the abortion industry. It alleged that the distribution of that information would hurt the company's right to privacy and that Stericycle would “lose business, customer relationships, and customer goodwill”. In September 2016, a judge dismissed all charges.
In 2019, another pro-life organization, Protest Planned Parenthood, called for a nationwide protest at Stericycle locations across the USA on May 22 to protest its handling of fetal remains. This was timed to coincide with Stericycle's annual meeting in Chicago.

Environmental concerns

Stericycle's medical waste incinerator located in North Salt Lake, Utah has been a topic of hot debate in the community. In September 2013, Erin Brockovich joined in with Utah residents in their call for Stericycle to discontinue their business in the area. Brockovich's visit was spurred by a violation notice from the Utah Division of Air Quality to Stericycle for excessive emissions above legal limits, and manipulating their reporting to show lower amounts of Mercury, Dioxins, and other potentially harmful chemicals emitted through burning medical waste.
The violations in 2013 were followed by criminal investigations at the order of Utah Governor Gary Herbert.
Investigations by California's Soil Water Air Protection Enterprise, or SWAPE, in connection with Ms. Brockovich, discovered Dioxin in homes near the incinerator at levels 16x higher than what is considered "safe".
As of December 1, 2014, Stericycle and the Utah Division of Air Quality reached an agreement acknowledging no wrongdoing, though the settlement does require Stericycle to relocate approximately 40 miles to the west of the incinerator's current location in North Salt Lake. The settlement also calls for Stericycle to pay a $2.3 million fine, half of which is forgivable if the move happens within 3 years.
As of October 2017, a $295 million settlement was reached on behalf of a nationwide class of Stericycle customers, following a class-action lawsuit accusing the company of engaging in a price-increasing scheme that automatically inflated customers' bills up to 18 percent biannually, according to a news release from Hagens Berman, the Chicago-based law firm that represented the class.