Founded in 1966, the public-law special-purpose association Abfallverwertung Bazenheid (ZAB) has developed into a modern company in the waste disposal and recycling sector over the past decades. The ZAB provides its services for 33 municipalities in the St.Gallen regions of Gossau-Fürstenland, Wil and Toggenburg as well as Südthurgau and for supra-regional partner organizations. The catchment area includes around 190,000 residents and around 4,000 commercial and industrial companies.

The primary task of the ZAB is to collect household, industrial and commercial waste as well as sludge from municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants in the association region and to recycle it for material or energy recovery. The ZAB returns metals, waste paper, waste cardboard, glass, plastic from households and other recyclable materials to the material cycle. The ZAB uses combustible waste that is not recycled thermally - to produce energy in the form of heat and electricity.

The ZAB operates various plants to fulfill these tasks: the thermal plants in Bazenheid with a waste incineration plant and a sludge incineration plant, a shredder and sorting plant, decentralized easydrives in Degersheim and Gossau, the Burgauerfeld landfill in Flawil and a fleet of vehicles for collection logistics.