Cleaning Up the Nation's Waste Sites: Markets and Technology Trends - 1996 Edition - Executive Summary

Over the next several decades, federal, state, and local governments and private industry will commit billions of dollars annually to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous waste and petroleum products. This planned investment will result in a continuing demand for site remediation services and technologies that provide better, faster, cheaper environmental cleanup. The purpose of this report is to provide technology vendors, developers and investors, and government officials with improved information on the demand for cleanup services so that they may better identify business opportunities and plan technology research and development efforts. EPA believes that more readily available information on the cleanup market will further the development and use of new techniques for site remediation. The study describes the future demand for remediation services in all of the major cleanup programs in the U.S., including Superfund, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) corrective action, underground storage tanks, state programs, and federal agencies such as the Departments of Defense and Energy (DOD and DOE). The study updates and expands a 1993 analysis that brought together for the first time valuable information on site characteristics, market size, and other factors that affect the demand for remediation services and technologies in these programs. In addition to providing updates of data in the original version, this report includes significant new information on cleanup needs related to underground storage tanks, RCRA corrective actions, and sites administered by DOD, DOE, and other federal agencies. It identifies several technology gaps, and highlights technology development priorities set by public and private sector problem owners.