UNITED PARCEL SERVICES

United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS; CIK 0001090727), the Dallas-headquartered package-delivery operator reporting $88.7 billion in 2025 revenue and average daily volume of 20.8 million packages, carries a concentrated environmental-compliance profile centered on hazardous-waste handling across its U.S. ground network [source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000162828026008432/ups-20251231.htm]. EPA ECHO records covering the subset of 10 facilities indexed to the united-parcel-services entity show 6 quarters of noncompliance over the trailing 24 months and a derived penalty total of approximately $6.42 million, with no active permits recorded and a most-recent permit action dated December 30, 2024 [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. A parallel ECHO record set tied to the UNITED PARCEL SERVICE INC (UPS) parent slug shows 8 quarters of noncompliance and approximately $10.64 million in 24-month penalty exposure across 11 facilities [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

Two multi-state Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) settlements anchor the enforcement record. The first, an EPA Region 6 consent agreement announced June 16, 2021, covered 183 locations in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas and carried a $3.8 million civil penalty [source: https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/united-parcel-service-inc-ups-settlement]. The second, a nationwide consent agreement announced October 19, 2022, reached across 1,160 facilities in 45 states and Puerto Rico and resolved for more than $5.3 million [source: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/ups-settles-epa-correct-alleged-hazardous-waste-violations-nationwide] [source: https://www.law360.com/real-estate-authority/commercial/articles/1541549/ups-to-pay-5-3m-nationwide-hazardous-waste-epa-penalty]. Those two federal actions alone account for more than $9.1 million in civil penalties. A California state action concluded August 4, 2025 added $1.745 million in penalties, cost reimbursement, and Supplemental Environmental Project funding — entered in San Bernardino County Superior Court with Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, and Yolo County District Attorneys as co-plaintiffs [source: https://rivcoda.org/UPS_violation]. Taken together, the three settled actions total more than $10.8 million and span a compliance arc that runs from 2021 through mid-2025.

UPS's federal compliance profile under EPA is defined by RCRA hazardous-waste handling rather than by Clean Water Act (CWA) or Clean Air Act (CAA) stationary-source permits. ECHO indicates zero active permits across the indexed facility set and a most-recent permit date of December 30, 2024, consistent with a logistics-network footprint that generates hazardous waste — damaged shipments, returned lithium-ion batteries, automotive fluids from fleet maintenance, aerosols — but rarely operates Title V air sources or NPDES-permitted dischargers [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. The derivation methodology reported by ECHO allocates 24-month penalty exposure by prorating five-year totals (penalty_24mo = total_5yr × 24/60), which means the $6.42 million figure for the 10-facility indexed set and the $10.64 million figure for the 11-facility parent-slug set both incorporate the tail of the 2022 nationwide settlement [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

The 24-month chronological record opens with residual compliance work under the October 19, 2022 nationwide consent agreement. That order required UPS to implement corporate-wide hazardous-waste compliance programs across 1,160 facilities in 45 states and Puerto Rico, citing failures to make land-disposal determinations and to conduct proper on-site management of hazardous waste [source: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/ups-settles-epa-correct-alleged-hazardous-waste-violations-nationwide]. Compliance implementation milestones under that order extend through 2024 and 2025. Then, on August 4, 2025, the Riverside County District Attorney — joined by the DA offices of San Bernardino, San Joaquin, and Yolo counties — announced a $1.745 million stipulated judgment in San Bernardino Superior Court. The judgment comprised $1.4 million in civil penalties, $140,000 in cost reimbursement, and $205,000 directed to Supplemental Environmental Projects, addressing unlawful disposal of hazardous and electronic waste at UPS-affiliated California facilities [source: https://rivcoda.org/UPS_violation] [source: https://da.sbcounty.gov/2025/08/04/united-parcel-service-inc-and-affiliates-ordered-to-pay-1-745-million-for-environmental-violations/] [source: https://kesq.com/news/2025/08/04/united-parcel-service-and-affiliates-ordered-to-pay-1-7m-in-penalties-for-environmental-violations/].

Operationally, UPS disclosed on its Q1 2026 earnings call that it will close 27 additional parcel facilities in 2026, bringing the year's total to 51 closures under a network-downsizing program tied to the December 2025 USPS final-mile agreement for Ground Saver and Mail Innovations volumes [source: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/ups-close-27-additional-parcel-134020058.html] [source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000162828026008432/ups-20251231.htm]. Facility closures carry direct compliance implications. RCRA closure procedures, decommissioning of maintenance-bay waste streams, and transfer of generator status all create near-term inspection exposure at each shuttered site. The Q3 2025 10-Q contained no material environmental-litigation disclosure beyond routine language [source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000162828025049661/ups-20250930.htm].

Action 1 — EPA Region 6 Consent Agreement and Final Order, announced June 16, 2021 (pre-window, relevant as an ongoing compliance obligation). Program: RCRA Subtitle C. Respondents: United Parcel Service, Inc. and TForce Freight, Inc. Scope: 183 facilities in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Texas. Civil penalty: $3.8 million. Corrective action: 24-month compliance implementation across all Region 6 locations [source: https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/united-parcel-service-inc-ups-settlement].

Action 2 — EPA Nationwide Consent Agreement and Final Order, announced October 19, 2022. Program: RCRA Subtitle C. Scope: 1,160 UPS facilities across 45 states and Puerto Rico. Civil penalty: greater than $5.3 million. Alleged violations: failure to make land-disposal restriction determinations; improper on-site hazardous-waste management; labeling and accumulation-time violations. Corrective action: corporate-wide environmental management system implementation and periodic reporting to EPA [source: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/ups-settles-epa-correct-alleged-hazardous-waste-violations-nationwide] [source: https://www.law360.com/real-estate-authority/commercial/articles/1541549/ups-to-pay-5-3m-nationwide-hazardous-waste-epa-penalty].

Action 3 — California Stipulated Judgment, entered August 4, 2025, San Bernardino County Superior Court. Program: California Hazardous Waste Control Law, Health and Safety Code; parallels federal RCRA. Plaintiffs: District Attorneys of Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, and Yolo counties. Total monetary obligation: $1.745 million ($1.4 million civil penalties; $140,000 investigative cost reimbursement; $205,000 Supplemental Environmental Projects). Allegations: unlawful disposal of hazardous waste, electronic waste, and customer-confidential records at UPS transfer facilities identified during waste-audit inspections [source: https://rivcoda.org/UPS_violation] [source: https://da.sbcounty.gov/2025/08/04/united-parcel-service-inc-and-affiliates-ordered-to-pay-1-745-million-for-environmental-violations/].

Aggregated ECHO-derived 24-month exposure: $6,424,160 across the 10 facilities in the indexed set, with 6 quarters of noncompliance, and $10,640,000 across the 11-facility parent-slug set with 8 quarters of noncompliance — both values prorated from 5-year totals per ECHO methodology [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

Facility 1 — FRN 110005040614. ECHO classifies this site within the indexed UPS set subject to the 2022 nationwide RCRA consent agreement. No active permits are listed; quarterly noncompliance contributions feed the 6-quarter 24-month count [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. EJ Index data is reported as 0.0 in the aggregated ECHO export. That figure reflects absent demographic mapping in the pulled subset rather than a measured zero; the underlying EJScreen values per FRN are not included in the provided data bundle [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

Facility 2 — FRN 110070637385. Listed in the same ECHO extract, this site contributes to RCRA generator-status reporting under the post-2022 compliance program. No active Title V or NPDES permits are recorded [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

Facility 3 — FRN 110005819962. Indexed among the 10 reviewed facilities. Facility-level pollutant and inspection narratives are not populated in the aggregated export; top_pollutants is reported as an empty array at the parent slug level [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

Facility 4 — FRN 110031308662. Part of the indexed set feeding the $6.42 million derived 24-month penalty total. The ECHO exporter methodology allocates penalties by pro-rata share of the five-year total, so facility-level dollar attribution within this bundle is not itemized [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

Facility 5 — FRN 110072043353. Most recently added to the indexed UPS facility roster, carrying the latest permit-related date in the dataset: December 30, 2024. No active permits are recorded; RCRA generator classification is the governing federal compliance regime [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. The broader California case sweep — reflected in the August 4, 2025 multi-county stipulated judgment — covered UPS transfer operations in Riverside, San Bernardino, San Joaquin, and Yolo counties, though specific FRN mapping to those county sites is not provided in the bundled data [source: https://rivcoda.org/UPS_violation].

The ECHO extract reports top_pollutants as an empty array for both the 10-facility indexed set and the 11-facility parent-slug set. That result is a function of UPS's compliance profile being governed by RCRA hazardous-waste regulations rather than by Toxics Release Inventory reportable releases or NPDES effluent limits [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. The enforcement record, read alongside the ECHO data, identifies three principal waste categories that define the actual exposure.

Hazardous waste under RCRA Subtitle C — ignitable liquids, corrosives, reactive materials, and characteristic toxics from damaged consumer shipments and fleet-maintenance operations — is the core exposure category cited in both the 2021 Region 6 settlement and the 2022 nationwide settlement. EPA's consent agreement documents failures to make land-disposal-restriction determinations and to conduct proper on-site management. Those are the regulatory touchpoints for ensuring that listed and characteristic wastes do not enter municipal solid-waste streams [source: https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/ups-settles-epa-correct-alleged-hazardous-waste-violations-nationwide] [source: https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/united-parcel-service-inc-ups-settlement].

Universal waste and electronic waste, called out specifically in the August 2025 California judgment, carries exposure pathways through landfill leachate — heavy metals including lead, cadmium, and mercury from circuit boards and batteries — and through improper handling of lithium-ion cells that can cause facility fires [source: https://rivcoda.org/UPS_violation]. Diesel particulate matter and NOx emissions from UPS's ground fleet and from airside operations at hubs sit outside the ECHO stationary-source framework but are referenced qualitatively in UPS's 2024 GRI Report under Scope 1 emissions. Specific facility-adjacent air-quality EJ indices are not provided in the pulled ECHO data, which reports ej_index_avg as 0.0 due to missing demographic mapping [source: https://about.ups.com/content/dam/upsstories/images/our-impact/reporting/2024-UPS-GRI-Report.pdf] [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip].

The ECHO peer query within NAICS 492110 (Couriers and Express Delivery Services) returned a single comparator — the parent UPS slug itself — with 8 quarters of noncompliance, $10.64 million in derived 24-month penalty exposure, and 11 indexed facilities, versus the 10-facility indexed subset at 6 quarters and $6.42 million [source: https://echo.epa.gov/files/echodownloads/echo_exporter.zip]. The absence of FedEx, regional LTL carriers, or USPS contract operators in the returned peer set reflects either slug-matching logic within the ECHO export or the concentration of parent-level enforcement within a small number of large-entity filings. It is not an indication that competitors lack comparable exposure. The Violation Tracker database maintained by Good Jobs First aggregates multi-jurisdictional penalty data for UPS and peer carriers and can be used to triangulate [source: https://violationtracker.goodjobsfirst.org/violation-tracker/ca-united-parcel-services-inc].

UPS's February 17, 2026 10-K Item 1A section incorporates forward-looking-statement limitations and directs investors to the Investor Relations website for material-information updates. The pulled excerpt emphasizes strategic execution under the Customer First, People Led, Innovation Driven framework, the December 2025 USPS final-mile agreement, and the Frigo-Trans and Andlauer Healthcare Group acquisitions building a healthcare cold-chain portfolio that generated more than $11 billion in 2025 revenue [source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1090727/000162828026008432/ups-20251231.htm]. Two environmental risk vectors intersect with that strategic picture. The network-downsizing program — 51 parcel facility closures announced for 2026 — triggers RCRA closure procedures and potential residual-contamination assessments at decommissioned maintenance bays [source: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/ups-close-27-additional-parcel-134020058.html]. The expansion of temperature-controlled pharmaceutical logistics, meanwhile, increases refrigerant and cold-chain hazardous-materials handling exposure at the company's growing healthcare distribution sites [source: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/ups-ceo-says-drug-delivery-strategy-good-antidote-economic-uncertainty-2026-04-30/]. Both vectors create inspection surface that did not exist at the same scale in prior compliance cycles.