Clean Harbors, Inc. (CLH) Stock Price & How to Invest

Clean Harbors operates two segments. Environmental Services (the large majority of revenue and profit) runs hazardous-waste incinerators, landfills, treatment facilities, field and emergency-response services, and the Safety-Kleen branded parts-washer and used-oil collection network. The second segment, Safety-Kleen Sustainability Solutions (SKSS), is North America's largest re-refiner and recycler of used motor oil, turning waste oil into base and blended lubricants. The company's moat comes from owning scarce, hard-to-permit assets: RCRA-permitted high-temperature incinerators and disposal sites that competitors cannot easily replicate, which gives Clean Harbors durable pricing power on the disposal side.

The investment picture is one of a high-quality industrial compounder trading at a premium valuation. Full-year 2025 revenue reached a record ~$6.03 billion with net income of ~$391 million, and the company delivered record Q1 2026 revenue while raising full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance. Q2 2026 then came in well ahead of expectations: EPS of $3.22 beat the $2.82 consensus, revenue grew about 12% year over year, and trailing twelve-month revenue reached about $6.24 billion with net income of about $439 million as of October 2026. The bull case rests on a long runway of secular tailwinds (tightening environmental regulation, reshoring of industrial activity, and an emerging PFAS destruction market where Clean Harbors is a technology leader). The counterweight is the roughly 39x trailing earnings multiple, exposure to industrial and energy cycles, and the more volatile, oil-price-sensitive SKSS segment.

In early October 2026 Clean Harbors closed two acquisitions for a combined $775 million: EnviroServe, a Utah-based national environmental and waste services provider with 40 locations and permits in 48 states, and ES&H, a Louisiana-based Gulf Coast emergency response and field services operator with maritime spill-response capability. The company expects about $340 million of combined annual revenue and about $87 million of post-synergy adjusted EBITDA from the pair, an implied multiple of about 8.9x, and funded them with cash and a $600 million senior notes offering. The stock has risen about 31% year to date as of October 16, 2026.

The stock trades at roughly 39x trailing and 32x forward earnings as of October 2026, so it prices in continued execution and leaves little room for disappointment. The SKSS segment is sensitive to base and blended oil pricing, which pressured results in early 2026 and adds cyclicality. Environmental Services demand is tied to industrial production and energy activity, so a manufacturing or energy slowdown would reduce waste volumes and emergency-response work. The business is capital intensive and carries meaningful debt from acquisitions (about $3.25 billion as of June 30, 2026, before the $600 million notes issued to fund the EnviroServe and ES&H deals), and integration of those businesses is a new execution task, and it faces ongoing regulatory, environmental-liability, and permitting risk. PFAS revenue, while promising, is still early and depends on the pace and shape of future regulation.

15 analysts publish price targets on CLH, averaging $361.00 against a $320.06 price as of October 2026, or +12.8%. The published targets run from $325.00 to $390.00, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 13 buy, 4 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there have been 10 raises and 0 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full CLH forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on Clean Harbors, Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. Scarce disposal infrastructure and pricing power. Clean Harbors owns a network of RCRA-permitted incinerators and hazardous-waste landfills that are extremely difficult to permit and build new. The most optimistic published target, $390.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. The stock trades at roughly 39x trailing and 32x forward earnings as of October 2026, so it prices in continued execution and leaves little room for disappointment. The most pessimistic target, $325.00, is roughly what CLH is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on CLH, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

No. Clean Harbors, Inc. (CLH) has not split its stock in the last 10 years. That is a statement about the window we check rather than about the company’s entire history, so an older split is possible. It also matters less than it once did: fractional shares mean a high price per share no longer keeps smaller investors out, which removed most of the practical reason to split.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see Clean Harbors, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$6.24B
• Revenue growth (Q2 2026, YoY): ~12%
• Net income (TTM): ~$439M
• Operating / net margin: ~15.5% / ~7%
• P/E trailing / forward: ~39x / ~32x
• Market cap: ~$16.8B
• Dividend yield: None

Clean Harbors trades at about 39 times trailing and 32 times forward earnings as of October 16, 2026, and about 16 times EV/EBITDA, a premium-industrial multiple that the Q2 2026 beat helped support. Analysts expect 2026 EPS near $9.97, up about 35%, but only about 2% growth in 2027, so the premium leans on PFAS, incinerator utilization and the newly acquired businesses. The mean target of 15 analysts is about $361, above the $317.70 close, with a consensus rating of buy.

Other names that sit close to CLH: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get CLH exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so CLH sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where CLH fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

CLH is an infrastructure-heavy, regulation-protected environmental services compounder priced for continued growth, with PFAS destruction and its new incinerator as the key upside levers. A strong Q2 2026 beat (EPS of $3.22 against a $2.82 estimate) and the October 2026 close of the $775 million EnviroServe and ES&H acquisitions have added to the growth case, while the shares now sit near the top of their 52-week range at about 39 times trailing earnings.

Whether CLH is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is CLH a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the CLH stock forecast.

For income investors, whether CLH pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does CLH pay a dividend? And to weigh CLH against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: CLH vs WM and CLH vs RSG.