The cost of environmental remediation refers to the cost of cleaning up polluted or degraded environments, and to those costs associated with reducing pollution generated by human activity Examples of remediation include building sewage treatment plants, cleaning up contaminated soil, installing pollution control devices in industrial plants, and replanting forests
The economy disposes of wastes into the air and water, and the resulting degradation of the environment imposes costs, such as lower timber yields and fish harvests and higher cleaning, environmental restoration costs.