Sterecycle was founded in February 2003 by Duncan Grierson and Bob Grierson who saw the potential to use autoclaving for treating and recycling residual household and commercial wastes. Autoclaving has been used for many years to sterilize small batches of medical waste in order to make such waste inert and reduce its disposal cost. The company has pioneered the use of autoclaving at a commercial scale using not only “giant” autoclaves, but also separating and recycling the by-products from landfill.

The business had some early successes in 2003 and 2004, raising initial seed financing and being shortlisted for several major contracts including with Lancashire County Council for its 25 year PFI for 1 million tonnes of waste per annum and with Cleanaway for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets long term contract for 160,000 tonnes pa. However, autoclaving technology was still seen as novel for the household waste sector and it was only with the arrival of a regulatory driver in the form of penalties under the Landfill Allowance Scheme in April 2005 that local authorities began to really focus their attention on newer technologies. The team was joined by Ron Kopas as Finance Director in March 2005 and in late 2005 the company raised further funding from a group of angel investors, including chairman Andy Hinton, to build the first autoclave. Knowing that the funds raised were inadequate to complete a plant, and without a site or waste stream yet secured, the commencement of building the autoclave nonetheless gave strong momentum to the business and, underlining the confidence of the management team, helped encourage investment from Goldman Sachs in 2006. With the funding from Goldman Sachs and others, Sterecycle completed its first plant in Rotherham, Yorkshire, in June 2008. This plant demonstrated the technology at commercial scale and provided the platform for the further growth that the company is now enjoying. The announcement of significant increases in Landfill Tax by the UK Government in 2007 and 2008 has provided further stimulus to the Company's development.