HOUSTON – April 29, 2009 – Waste Management, Inc. (NYSE: WMI) today announced financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2009. Net income(a) for the quarter was $155 million, or $0.31 per diluted share, compared with $241 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, for the first quarter of 2008. Revenues for the first quarter of 2009 were $2.81 billion compared with $3.27 billion for the same 2008 period. Of the $456 million decrease in revenue, only $132 million, or 4.7% of revenue, comes from operational impacts to the solid waste collection and disposal business. The balance of the decline is due to commodity impacts related to recycling materials, fuel and energy, and non-operational items including foreign currency translation and one fewer work day during the first quarter of 2009.

The Company noted certain items that impacted results in the 2009 and 2008 first quarters. Excluding these items, net income would have been $0.42 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2009 compared with $0.47 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2008.(b)

Results in the first quarter of 2009 included a decrease of $0.11 per diluted share from:

• A $23 million reduction in net income due to charges related to the restructuring announced in February 2009; and

• A $30 million reduction in net income related to the abandonment of SAP software.

Results in the first quarter of 2008 included a net $0.01 per diluted share benefit due to $6 million of net income from income tax audit settlements.

David P. Steiner, Chief Executive Officer of Waste Management, commented, “I am pleased with the way we are performing during this challenging economic environment. We increased our income from operations margin on an as-adjusted basis by 70 basis points compared to the prior year period, and we generated strong cash flow.(b) The majority of our business relates to commercial and residential sources and is generally recession resistant. Internal revenue growth from volume in our commercial and residential collection lines in the first quarter was consistent with our experience during 2008, at about negative 4% each. The fourth quarter volume declines that we saw in our more economically sensitive industrial collection, landfill, transfer & recycling businesses continued into 2009. We expect volumes in these economically sensitive lines of business to remain soft in 2009 and, as a result, we continue to focus on cost and pricing discipline and driving continued efficiency throughout our organization.

“As we anticipated, we saw a negative impact of $0.09 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2009, compared with the prior year period, as a result of the deterioration of the recycling commodities markets. Conditions have stabilized and prices have been trending upward from the lows reached in January. We continue to expect a negative year-over-year impact from recycling operations of $0.15 to $0.20 per diluted share for the full year 2009, most of which is expected to be in the first half of the year.”

Steiner concluded, “At the beginning of February we restructured the Company to prepare ourselves for a slower economy, and these actions succeeded, saving us approximately $10 million per month in February and March. Consequently, we expect to exceed $120 million in annualized savings from our restructuring. The recession resistant qualities and strong cash flows of our solid waste business, combined with the proactive steps we are taking to strengthen our pricing programs and reduce our costs, give us confidence that we will continue to generate strong cash returns for our shareholders and emerge from this economic downturn even stronger than before. We remain confident that we will meet the 2009 goals that we announced earlier in the year.”



Key Highlights for the First Quarter 2009

• Internal revenue growth from yield on our collection and disposal business was 3.1% when calculated using revenue only from these lines of business.

• Internal revenue growth from volume was negative 8.1%. Adjusting for the effect of one less work day during the first quarter of 2009 compared to the prior year quarter, internal revenue growth from volume was negative 7.4%.

• Operating expenses declined by $367 million, or approximately 17.5%, to $1.73 billion in the first quarter of 2009. As a percentage of revenue, first quarter 2009 operating expenses decreased to 61.4%, which is a 270 basis point improvement compared with the same quarter in 2008, and is a strong performance given the revenue decline.

• Cost savings totaling approximately $20 million were realized for the months of February and March related to the restructuring we announced in February and annualized savings are expected to exceed $120 million. A charge of $38 million was incurred for this restructuring and up to $15 million of additional charges are expected to be incurred in the second and third quarters of 2009.

• A $5 million benefit to net income resulted from the accounting impact of an increase in the 10-year risk free interest rate, which is used to calculate the present value of our remediation liabilities.

• Net cash provided by operating activities was $519 million in the quarter.

• Capital expenditures were $325 million in the quarter, a $112 million increase from the prior year period. This is primarily the result of paying in 2009 expenditures incurred in 2008. We still expect full year capital expenditures to be in the range of $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion.

• $143 million was returned to shareholders through dividend payments in the quarter.

• The effective tax rate in the quarter was approximately 37.2%, which reflects the impact of the implementation of an accounting change.