Not saying that the concept of environmental protection is bad.-----In fact there is not nearly enough being done.
Be careful of what you wish for....lol
Ran a machine/fab shop with 30 employees at one point. Made everything in house from late 70's into the early 90's.
In the 90's things changed. All of a sudden you needed a Federal, State or local permit of some sort to own or operate anything as a commercial entity. Use permits, disposal and inspection fees became all the rage.
Gotten a quote to anodize or plate anything in the past 10 years? Used to pay pennies on the pound for plating services. Today, good luck finding anyone to do it. We pay more to plate a single article that we did an entire "batch" years past.
Needless to say the cost of the "new" regulations put a lot of large and small manufacturing companies out of business. Not that they didn't want to comply, they couldn't afford to comply. Big reason so many of the "dirty" industries where pushed overseas.......NIMBY.