Cost of Waste Treatment in the
Meat Packing Industry
KATHLEEN Q. CAMIN, Assistant Professor
Department of Economics
Wichita State University
Wichita, Kansas
INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to present a brief picture of recent efforts at
wasteload reduction in the meat packing industry which are the result of waste
treatment and to estimate some of the costs associated with these efforts at waste
treatment. Until recently there has been no nation-wide picture of waste treatment
efforts in the meat packing industry, only isolated case studies. A generalized picture
of an industry's efforts at waste reduction is basic information which must precede
such questions as: Is this effort sufficient? Are there alternative mixes of treatment
facilities that can do the same job at lower costs? What are the alternative mixes of
achieving higher levels of waste reduction and the associated costs?
Although wasteload reduction may be the result of changing the techniques of
manufacturing, such changes are not analyzed with respect to costs because the data
were insufficient.
The purpose of examining the costs associated with waste treatment is not to
present a sophisticated economic analysis of the alternative methods of achieving the
same level of waste reduction, but rather to call attention to the magnitude of the
waste reduction problem, and to point out the types of additional research needed.
The data upon which this paper is based, were collected in 1967 under a
doctoral dissertation grant from the National Science Foundation. In addition to the
dissertation (1), these data were used to prepare the Industrial Waste Profile No. 8;
Meat Products, of the Cost of Clean Water series (2). Data was requested from about
600 meat packing plants and received from 227 plants, whose annual kill is over 26
mil/lb or 57 per cent of all federally inspected slaughter.
Although federally inspected packing plants represent only 20 per cent of all
commercial meat packing plants, these federally inspected plants are killing about 85
per cent of all live weight slaughter. Because 85 per cent of all slaughter takes place
in federally inspected plants, and because this percentage is increasing each year, it
seems reasonable to assume that the federally inspected slaughter is representative of
the entire meat packing industry. With the passage of the meat packing act in 1968,
it is even more likely that the federally inspected portion of the industry will be
representative of the future industry.
Waste Treatment Options Available to Industry
There are four basic alternatives available to industry with respect to
wastewater disposal. These alternatives include: industrial waste treatment; industrial
plus municipal waste treatment; municipal treatment; and no treatment.
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