Waste Management, Inc. (WM)

I love waste management. Not just because they pick up my trash every week, and not just because they only charge me every other month ($40.00 a pop), but because they also charge every neighbor in my neighborhood the same $40.00 a month. And not just my neighbors, but everyone in my town, and in many towns around the country. I also don't just love them because they pay a nice dividend, with a relatively low payout ratio, but they just raised their dividend. I don't just love them because they are a stable, monster player in a field with very little chance of new players poping up over night (read huge moat), or because they are so big, they can force the next largest competitor to buy a large player for more than they are worth, just so they can hope to compete. i like these guys because they are a green energy play. That's right, a GREEN ENERGY play. First of all, they are a huge recycler. Not much money in that now, but when the economy comes back it will help the bottom line just that much more. Think about that, I pay them $40.00 a month to pick up my recycling, only for them to eventually sell that trash to someone else. Now the really big thing for me is the methane they are using to produce electricity. You see after a land fill is filled, they cover it up, and sometimes plant a park or something. But the trash decomposes and creates methane, which they must vent from the landfill and monitor. They have developed a way (don't ask me how) to turn the methane into electricity, instead of just pumping it into the air. I know, this isn't the cleanest energy source around, but I don't see us fighting any wars over methane, and it is coming out of the landfill anyway, so we might as well use it. And did i mention that they are selling the electricity they produce from the methane that is created when the trash that I paid them to pick up decomposes underneath the park the planted. How can you not love a company that gets people to pay them to pick up things that they then use to create other things that they sell to other people. Every time i see one of those trucks, it just makes me smile. Did I mention the dividend.