Geographic, sectoral, and constituent characteristics of US off‐site manufacturing wastewater disposal

Abstract

This study employs recent US Environmental Protection Agency off‐site manufacturing wastewater disposal data and a socioenvironmental assessment tool for the United States to understand the characteristics of such disposal in terms of geography, major contributing sectors and pollutants, and environmental impacts. Environmental impact analyses of manufacturing are insufficient without encompassing the extended physical boundary of waste management. Our analysis reveals that off‐site manufacturing wastewater disposal occurs disproportionately in populations residing in census tracts already negatively impacted by environmental hazards (impacted populations, or IPs) with 44% of transfers and 55% of Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) Hazard going to these areas, compared to their national share of 37%. Disposal hazard is concentrated in a small number of populations, with a Gini coefficient of 0.99 for RSEI Hazard. Four manufacturing sub‐sectors are significant generators: Chemicals, Fabricated Metals, Primary Metals, and Transportation Equipment, with Chemicals off‐site wastewater disposal largely occurring in IPs. For individual contaminants, chromium compounds and chromium represent more than 85% of the hazard but less than 10% of transfers. We explore transfer distances and waste generation and disposal hotspots, finding that the Midwest hosts a disproportionate share of off‐site wastewater disposal. Further, RSEI Hazard steeply rises at shorter distances and plateaus over distances >500 miles, revealing opportunities to reduce hazard by reducing 20–500‐mile transfers. Our findings strongly support targeted mitigation strategies like process substitutions, control technologies, on‐site recycling and treatment, and minimizing transfer distances. This article met the requirements for a gold‐gold JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.