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Manufacturers Not Investing in Pollution Reduction

U.S. manufacturers spent less that one percent of total revenue on pollution prevention and treatment in 2005, according to a new estimates released yesterday by the U.S. Census Bureau. The manufacturing sector in the U.S. spent $5.9 billion dollars on capital expenditures and $20.7 billion dollars on operating costs for pollution prevention and treatment in 2005, which represents less than than five percent of total new capital expenditures.

The EPA considers the new estimates, reported yesterday in a U.S. Census report, “Pollution Abatement Costs and Expenditures (PACE): 2005,” to be the most comprehensive publicly available. The PACE report is the most recent installment of an ongoing series conducted since 1973 to assess annual costs for pollution abatement by the manufacturing sector.

The report provides additional details on pollution abatement expenditures, categorized by type of pollution media and abatement activity by industry and state. The reported costs include capital and operating costs for treatment/capture, prevention, recycling, and disposal, as well as depreciation of pollution abatement equipment.

More information on the 2005 PACE data, including the efforts to evaluate the data and redevelop the 2005 survey: http://yosemite.epa.gov/ee/epa/eed.nsf/pages/pace2005.html