Which companies import waste into the United States?

The transnational corporation Clean Harbors handled over 40% of all shipments of waste imported into the US between 2007 and 2012 (mapped here). As the map shows, the sites where Clean Harbors imports waste into the US are not concentrated in one geographic region. Instead, they are located throughout the United States. Similarly, the places they export waste from in Canada are located across that entire country. If you click on an importer, you can see the facilities in Canada from which they import waste.

Clean Harbors moves waste extensively between the United States and Canada. This chart shows shipments of hazardous waste Clean Harbors made from one of its facilities to another in 2011 and 2012, including to and from US sites (for more on US exports, click here). Most flows are unidirectional, indicating that each Clean Harbors facility specializes in a particular kind of treatment or disposal method. For instance, El Dorado sent Thurso only waste containing mercury. Thurso sent El Dorado some waste bulbs with mercury, but mostly other kinds of hazardous chemicals, most of which were slated to be incinerated. You can hover over the chart to identify the specific amounts of waste shipped between Clean Harbors facilities.

The visualizations here are conservative estimates of Clean Harbors’ place in the hazardous waste trade. Data mapped here do not include transactions conducted by Safety-Kleen, a firm acquired by Clean Harbors in 2012.

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