Um...how does one generate billions of dollars from bankrupt industries? 
The short version is you sue them, their parent companies or whoever buys the companies assets forever. The EPA has some scaryass regulations in place, and has for years.
For example:
Joe's Garage installs a hydraulic lift for servicing cars, and after 20 years learn its not profitable, and he replaces the garage part of their business with a convenience store. Instead of ripping the lift out of the ground, they cement it in and build the floor of the store right over it. 100 years later, long after the owner has died, and the business was bulldozed to make way for expanded parking for a strip mall. The hydraulic lift is still there and finally rots to the point of releasing fluid into a water runoff.
Even though the company that owns the strip mall had no idea that the lift was ever there, they are 100% responsible for the cleanup, and all costs associated with it, and are also open to lawsuits to anyone who feels that they or their property was poisoned by that fluid leak.