Hazardous waste management is often discussed in the context of environmental and public health impact, and rightly so; those areas are important. But recently, an interesting report took a look at hazardous waste management from a different angle: its impact on economic growth.
The report, “Hazardous Waste Management: A Hidden Input to U.S. Economic Growth,” was commissioned by Veolia (Aubervilliers, France; www.veolia.com) and carried out by Charles River Associates (CRA; Boston, Mass.; www.crai.com). It examines the importance of hazardous waste management to the U.S. economy and found that shortfalls in hazardous waste management capacity could reduce economic output. Even a 1% shortfall would reduce gross output by $27 billion in 2033, the report says, and a 3% shortfall could raise the impact to $82 billion in lost output [1].
Currently, hazardous waste management relies on a national network of treatment, recovery and disposal facilities designed to safely manage the array of compounds found in hazardous waste. “Operating these facilities requires substantial capital investment, specialized technical expertise, and extensive permitting. Excluding intermediate transfers and storage, 809 hazardous waste facilities managed approximately 35.5 million tons of hazardous waste in 2023,” the report says. Depending on its properties and source, hazardous waste is managed in a variety of methods — including incineration, landfilling and recovery — that the EPA highlights in its assessments of national capacity “because such facilities are often costly and difficult to permit and are essential for managing much of the nation’s hazardous waste.”
CPI are front and center for hazardous waste
The chemical process industries (CPI) produce the vast majority of the U.S.’s hazardous waste. According to U.S. Federal Reserve figures, chemical manufacturing, petroleum refining and metals production collectively generate over 75,000 tons of hazardous waste per day in the U.S. alone, but also contribute nearly $1 trillion to U.S. GDP and support 2.7 million jobs.
The report projects that the U.S. economy is poised to generate an additional 5 million tons per year as soon as 2033. The increase results from industrial reshoring policies, as well as from intended growth of emerging strategic sectors, such as semiconductors and vehicle batteries. Ensuring waste-management capacity can accommodate growth in all of these strategic sectors is critical to sustaining future industrial expansion and economic growth, the report points out.
“One of the clearest findings of the report is just how ubiquitous hazardous waste management is across the economy, with a large number of everyday products depending on it somewhere in their production,” says Alan Jaske, the report’s author and associate principal at CRA. The role of hazardous waste management will become increasingly important during the coming decade, as will managing the tension between avoiding environmental and health impact while capturing economic value. Jaske notes: “The ability to effectively manage hazardous waste is therefore a material consideration not only for environmental policy and public health, but also for industrial activity and economic growth.”
For more on hazardous waste, see the CLEAN Americas Show Preview in this issue. ■
Scott Jenkins, senior editor
Reference: 1. Jaske, A., Hazardous Waste Management: A Hidden Input to U.S. Economic Growth, Charles River Associates, September 2026.
