Earnings sent one component of the lagging pollution control sector higher on Friday.

Chinese environmental protection and remediation company RINO International (NASDAQ: RINO - News) is shooting higher after a 41% spike in third-quarter sales. Adjusted net income came in at $19.7 million or 78 cents a share, easily beating the 47-cent EPS expected by analysts. President and CEO Zou Dejun said the company's backlog as of September 30 was approximately $52.7 million. Dejun added, "We believe our collective growth initiatives will continue to provide incremental and robust top-line and bottom line growth and we currently expect to surpass our previous revenue estimate of $176.5 million for 2009." The press release did not divulge any further details on full-year guidance.

RINO's 12% leap is helping the Pollution Control and Waste Treatment Stocks Index ahead by 4% as a whole, today. Meanwhile, Clean Harbors (NYSE: CLH - News) and American Ecology Corporation (NASDAQ: ECOL - News) are up by more than 1% for the session.

Minneapolis, Minnesota-based filtration system company Donaldson Company (NYSE: DLI - News) will report its quarterly performance numbers on Wednesday after the market close. The stock is the sector's top performer over the last month, up by over 15%. Next-highest Tenneco (NYSE: TEN - News) is up a mere 2% for the period by comparison.

American Ecology and MFRI (NASDAQ: MFRI - News) are among the worst performers over the last month, both down by double-digit percentages.

Besides RINO and Met-Pro (NYSE: MPR - News), which will report its earnings a week from today, the whole sector is trading on relatively light volume. It will be interesting to see where the Street sends shares next week.

A look at the Pollution Control and Waste Treatment Stocks Index's 6-mongh performance chart shows that it has stayed well ahead of the S&P 500 for the period.

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