Trash industry prepares for coronavirus waste

The United States’ trash industry is predicting a rise in coronavirus infected waste. Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous and Brian Sozzi to discuss what plans the trash industry is making to protect their workers.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: We are looking at a story that's in "The Wall Street Journal" this morning that caught all of our eyes. And that's about trash. We're not thinking about our waste during this pandemic, but it could actually become a very big problem for a lot of the companies that have to haul away our trash.

So the trash industry is bracing for what they call a potential deluge of coronavirus waste. We're talking about the medical waste processors-- masks, gowns, and so forth-- that could be contaminated. Just how do they deal with this? And is this, Brian Sozzi, perhaps going to even create some niche markets within the trash industry?

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah. And Alexis, I think it's a great point. You have companies like Stericyle. I know you mentioned this morning in our morning meeting, they are working to help solve this problem. But look, we've talked to Waste Management CEO Jim Fish a couple times.

And in this country, they're not building landfills anymore. So where are you going to put this stuff? And I think the likes of Waste Management, Republic Services, which is the number two largest player behind Waste Management in the industry, they're gonna have to figure this out. And hopefully, they're gonna figure it out pretty quickly.