text: **2004 Financial Objectives**
  
  In January 2004, we publicly announced our objectives for the year. These objectives included the 
  following: 
  
  ‚ Generating free cash Öow of approximately $340 million. 
  
  ‚ Using our free cash Öow to repurchase shares of our common stock under our $200.0 million share 
  repurchase program approved by our board of directors in October 2003 and continuing to pay 
  quarterly cash dividends. 
  
  ‚ Generating diluted earnings per share of $1.50 to $1.55. 
  
  ‚ Growing revenue from core operations by 3%, with approximately 2% attributable to price increases 
  and 1% attributable to volume growth. 
  
  ‚ Purchasing approximately $275 million of property and equipment. 
  
  **2004 Business Performance**
  
  During 2004, we achieved our earnings per share objective and exceeded our internal growth, free cash 
  
  Öow and share repurchase objectives. 
  
  Our internal growth from core operations for 2004 was 5.9%, with 2.3% from price increases and 3.6% 
  from volume growth. During 2004, our revenue growth from core pricing beneÑted from a broad-based pricing 
  initiative which we started during the fourth quarter of 2003. We experienced core volume growth in all lines 
  of our business, including our residential collection business resulting from the addition of several new 
  municipal contracts, and our landÑll and transfer station businesses resulting from newly opened sites and new 
  contracts. Our core volume growth was also positively impacted by the hurricanes. In addition, our geographic 
  mix of business, which is concentrated in high growth markets, positively impacted our operating results. As a 
  result, during 2004 we were able to exceed the internal growth objectives we established at the beginning of 
  the year. 