Cree Teams Up with Xeralux for High-Bay Upgrade

In a move to improve lighting quality and safety at its Cold Canyon Material Recovery Facility (MRF) in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Waste Connections, Inc. (NYSE:WCN) upgraded its lighting system with Cree-powered Xeralux LED high-bay fixtures. The Xeralux fixtures feature Cree (Nasdaq:CREE) XLamp^® XP-G LEDs, helping Waste Connections reduce its energy costs by almost two-thirds and nearly eliminating its maintenance costs.

"Our previous lighting technology didn’t deliver the high-quality light our facility needed,” said John Ryan, Facilities Manager at Cold Canyon. "Now, not only do we seem to have more light, but we also have a brighter, whiter light that is very pleasing. The employees love it. Less energy, better light and beats our internal rate of return target – the Xeralux retrofit is a great choice.”

The Xeralux Light Engine for High Bay (XLE-HB) replaced more than 80 400-watt metal halide lamps, sockets and ballasts with high-quality LED light. According to Waste Connections’ analysis of site energy consumption, the Cold Canyon MRF is now saving 260-285 kWh per day, translating to more than $13,000 per year. As a result, Waste Connections anticipates a payback time of less than three years and the virtual elimination of maintenance due to the 50,000 hour projected lifetime of the installed products.

"High-bay lighting has always been a challenge for industrial and commercial property owners, due to its high energy consumption and the high lumen output requirements,” said Jay Shuler, Xeralux vice president of marketing. "Cree XLamp LEDs allowed us to deliver high-quality fixtures that are virtually maintenance-free and enable the Cold Canyon facility to take full advantage of the benefits of LED lighting.”

About Waste Connections

Waste Connections, Inc. is an integrated solid waste services company that provides solid waste collection, transfer, disposal and recycling services in mostly exclusive and secondary markets. The Company serves more than two million residential, commercial and industrial customers from a network of operations in 29 states. The Company also provides intermodal services for the movement of containers in the Pacific Northwest. Waste Connections, Inc. was founded in September 1997 and is headquartered in Folsom, California. The Cold Canyon MRF in San Luis Obispo, California processes about 650 tons of curbside and commercial recycling per week, separating various plastic, glass, metal and paper materials and baling them for shipment to market.

For more information, visit the Waste Connections web site at www.wasteconnections.com. Copies of financial literature, including this release, are available on the Waste Connections website or through contacting us directly at 916-608-8200.

About Xeralux

Xeralux (www.xeralux.com) designs and manufactures lighting systems that enable its commercial, industrial and institutional customers to create safer, more beautiful and sustainable campuses while reducing energy and operational costs.

Xeralux Light Engines are LED upgrade kits that replace the bulb, ballast and reflector in virtually any 50W-750W commercial outdoor area light fixture, converting it into an energy efficient, long lasting, low maintenance, mercury-free luminaire. Xeralux upgrades typically reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gases by 50-80%, eliminate annual bulb and ballast replacement costs, improve lighting quality and safety, and completely eliminate the toxic mercury found in traditional HID, inductive, and fluorescent light sources.

About Cree

Cree is leading the LED lighting revolution and making energy-wasting traditional lighting technologies obsolete through the use of energy-efficient, mercury-free LED lighting. Cree is a market-leading innovator of lighting-class LEDs, LED lighting, and semiconductor solutions for wireless and power applications.

Cree’s product families include LED fixtures and bulbs, blue and green LED chips, high-brightness LEDs, lighting-class power LEDs, power-switching devices and radio-frequency/wireless devices. Cree solutions are driving improvements in applications such as general illumination, backlighting, electronic signs and signals, variable-speed motors, and wireless communications.

For additional product and company information, please refer to www.cree.com. To learn more about the LED Lighting Revolution, please visit www.creeledrevolution.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties, both known and unknown, that may cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated. Actual results may differ materially due to a number of factors, including the risk that actual savings may vary from expectations; customer acceptance of LED products; the rapid development of new technology and competing products that may impair demand or render Cree’s products obsolete; and other factors discussed in Cree’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its report on Form 10-K for the year ended June 26, 2011, and subsequent filings.

Cree and XLamp are registered trademarks of Cree, Inc.