Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2021

Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

3.    Landfill and Environmental Remediation Liabilities

Liabilities for landfill and environmental remediation costs as of December 31 are presented in the table below (in millions):

	2021						2020
			Environmental						Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation		Total		Landfill		Remediation		Total
Current (in accrued liabilities)	$	137	$	29	$	166	$	138	$	26	$	164
Long-term		2,189		184		2,373		2,018		204		2,222
	$	2,326	$	213	$	2,539	$	2,156	$	230	$	2,386

The changes to landfill and environmental remediation liabilities for the year ended December 31, 2021 are reflected in the table below (in millions):

			Environmental
	Landfill		Remediation
December 31, 2020	$	2,156	$	230
Obligations incurred and capitalized		117		—
Obligations settled		(101)		(22)
Interest accretion		108		3
Revisions in estimates and interest rate assumptions (a)		33		2
Acquisitions, divestitures and other adjustments (b)		13		—
December 31, 2021	$	2,326	$	213

(a) The amount reported for our landfill liabilities includes an increase of $15 million due to a business decision to accelerate the closure timing of a landfill in our West Tier segment, which resulted in the acceleration of the expected timing of capping, closure and post-closure activities. The remaining increase relates to revisions in estimated costs and timing of capping, closure and post-closure liabilities.

(b) The amount reported for our landfill liabilities includes an increase of $13 million related to changes in the fair values assigned to certain acquired Advanced Disposal sites.

Our recorded liabilities as of December 31, 2021 include the impacts of inflating certain of these costs based on our expectations of the timing of cash settlement and of discounting certain of these costs to present value. Anticipated

payments of currently identified environmental remediation liabilities, as measured in current dollars, are $29 million in 2022, $47 million in 2023, $35 million in 2024, $31 million in 2025, $11 million in 2026 and $54 million thereafter.