Pollution Prevention in the Metal Plating and Finishing Industry: Progress and Obstacles

ABSTRACT

This article reports the extent to which California firms in the metal plating and metal finishing industry are using pollution prevention (waste reduction) methods, identifies obstacles to adoption of these methods, and examines relationships between rates of adoption and the characteristics of firms. One hundred and seventy firms actively engaged in metal plating and finishing in three areas of California responded to our detailed mail survey (overall response rate = 40.8%). We asked firms about the amount of wastewater and sludge generated, costs of managing these wastes, total sales revenues, the firm's awareness of each of 20 waste reduction (WR) methods, and what action it had taken for each method it was aware of. We also asked companies about the extent to which 13 potential obstacles to adoption have prevented them from adopting additional WR methods. We found a high level of awareness and a fairly high level of adoption; the average numer of methods adopted was 7.9 out of 20 possible, and the adoption rate was more than 50% for 10 of the 20 methods. We also found statistically significant relationships between waste management costs of firms and their adoption of WR methods, especially hardware additions. Responding firms cited four obstacles most frequently: cost is too high, waste reduction could slow down production, waste reduction could hurt quality of the product, and the belief that the company cannot raise prices to cover the added cost of waste reduction because shops that do not comply with regulations would undercut their prices.

Key words:

Pollution prevention; waste reduction; heavy metals; water pollution; hazardous wastes; metal plating; metal finishing; Clean Water Act