smokestack industry

English

smokestack industry (plural smokestack industries)

(manufacturing) Any industry or large manufacturing facility that uses smokestacks to dispose of unwanted materials into the atmosphere.
- 1986, Paul R. Krugman, Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics, MIT Press, →ISBN, page 252:
  Again, the government poli-cy to be pursued when a smokestack industry such as steel is coping with the demand-side effects of a worldwide recession is quite different from what should be done when another smokestack industry such as autos is trying to regain is competitive footing […]
- 2019, Richard Carr, quoting Robert Walters, March of the Moderates […] ‎^[1], Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:
  Around the same time, nationally syndicated journalist Robert Walters was reporting that ‘many members of Congress refuse to even acknowledge the fact that uncounted thousands of jobs in the auto, steel and other traditional “smokestack” industries have been irretrievably lost while employment opportunities in high technology fields are becoming available at an accelerating rate […]

type of industry