Toxic waste is waste material that can cause death or injury to living creatures. It spreads quite easily and can contaminate lakes and rivers. The term is often used interchangeably with “hazardous waste”, or discarded material that can pose a long-term risk to health or environment.
Toxic waste may be produced by heavy industry, but also comes from residential use (e.g. cleaning products, cosmetics, lawn care products), agriculture (e.g. chemical fertilizers, pesticides), the military (nuclear weapons testing, chemical warfare), medical facilities (e.g. pharmaceuticals, radioisotopes), and light industry, such as dry cleaning establishments.[1][2] Toxic waste comes in many forms, such as liquid, solid, or sludge, and it contains chemicals, heavy metals, radioisotopes, dangerous pathogens, or other toxins.[3]
In the United States, the Environmental Protection Agengy (EPA) and the state departments oversee the rules that regulate hazardous waste. The EPA requires that toxic waste be handled with special precautions and be disposed of in designated facilities around the country. Also, many cities in the United States have collection days where household toxic waste is gathered. Some materials that are unaccepted at regular landfills are ammunition, commercially generated waste, explosives/shock sensitive items, hypodermic needles/syringes, medical waste, radioactive materials, smoke detectors, trash/recyclables, and unknown materials.[4]
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Toxic wastes often contain carcinogens, and exposure to these by some route, such as leakage or evaporation from the storage, causes cancer to appear at increased frequency in exposed individuals. For example, a cluster of the rare blood cancer polycythemia vera was found around a toxic waste dump site in northeast Pennsylvania in 2008.[5]
People encounter these toxins buried in the ground, in stream runoff, in groundwater that supplies drinking water, or in floodwaters, as happened after Hurricane Katrina. Some toxins, such as mercury, persist in the environment and accumulate. As a result of the bioaccumulation of mercury in both freshwater and marine ecosystems, predatory fish are a significant source of mercury in human and animal diets.[6]
Organic wastes can be destroyed by incineration at high temperatures; however, if the waste contains heavy metals or radioactive isotopes, these must be separated and stored, as they cannot be destroyed. The method of storage will seek to immobilize the toxic components of the waste, possibly through storage in sealed containers, inclusion in a stable medium such as glass or a cement mixture, or burial under an impermeable clay cap. Waste transporters and waste facilities may charge fees; consequently, improprer methods of disposal may be used to avoid paying these fees. Where the handling of toxic waste is regulated, the improper disposal of toxic waste may be punishable by fines[7] or prison terms. Burial sites for toxic waste and other contaminated brownfield land may eventually be used as greenspace or redeveloped for commercial or industrial use.
The United States first regulated toxic waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which took effect in 1976[8]. The Act gives the United States Environmental Protection Agency the authority to control the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste[9] The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act was followed by the Toxic Substances Control Act, which took effect on January 1, 1977. The Act authorized the EPA to secure information on all new and existing chemical substances, as well as to control any substances that were determined to cause unreasonable risk to public health or the environment.[10]
The Superfund Act is another act administered by the EPA. It contains rules about cleaning up toxic waste that was dumped illegally.[11]
There has been a long ongoing battle between communities and environmentalists versus governments and corporations about how strict and how fairly the regulations and laws are written and enforced. That battle began in North Carolina in the late summer of 1978, as EPA's TSCA regulations were being implemented. In North Carolina, 31,000 gallons of PCB-contaminated oil were deliberately dripped in a 3-foot swath along some 240 miles of rural Piedmont highways, creating the largest PCB spills in American history and a public health crisis that would have repercussions for generations to come. The PCB-contaminated material was eventually collected and buried in a landfill in Warren County, but citizens' opposition, including large public demonstrations, exposed the dangers of toxic waste, the fallibility of landfills then in use, and EPA regulations allowing landfills to be built on marginal, but politically acceptable sites.
Warren County citizens argued that the toxic waste landfill regulations were based on the fundamental assumption that the EPA's conceptual dry-tomb landfill would contain the toxic waste. This assumption informed the siting of toxic waste landfills and waivers to regulations that were included in EPA's Federal Register. For example, in 1978, the base of a major toxic waste landfill could be no closer than five feet from ground water, but this regulation and others could be waived. The waiver to the regulation concerning the distance between the base of a toxic waste landfill and groundwater allowed the base to be only a foot above ground water if the owner/operator of the facility could demonstrate to the EPA regional administrator that a leachate collection system could be installed and that there would be no hydraulic connection between the base of the landfill and groundwater. Citizens argued that the waivers to the siting regulations were discriminatory mechanisms facilitating the shift from scientific to political considerations concerning the siting decision and that in the South this would mean a discriminatory proliferation of dangerous waste management facilities in poor black and other minority communities. They also argued that the scientific consensus was that permanent containment could not be assured. As resistance to the siting of the PCB landfill in Warren County continued and studies revealed that EPA dry-tomb landfills were failing, EPA stated in its Federal Register that all landfills would eventually leak and should only be used as a stopgap measure.
Years of research and empirical knowledge of the failures of the Warren County PCB landfill led citizens of Warren County to conclude that the EPA's dry-tomb landfill design and regulations governing the disposal of toxic and hazardous waste were not based on sound science and adequate technology. Citizens concluded also that North Carolina's 1981 Waste Management Act was scientifically and constitutionally unacceptable because it authorized the siting of toxic, hazardous and nuclear waste facilities prior to public hearings, preempted local authority over the siting of the facilities, and authorized the use of force if needed.[12]
In the aftermath of the Warren County protests, the 1984 Federal Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act focused on waste minimization and phasing out land disposal of hazardous waste as well as corrective action for releases of hazardous materials. Other measures included in the 1984 amendments included increased enforcement authority for EPA, more stringent hazardous waste management standards, and a comprehensive underground storage tank program [13].
The disposal of toxic waste continues to be a source of conflict in the U.S. Due to the hazards associated with toxic waste handling and disposal, communities often resist the siting of toxic waste landfills and other waste management facilities; however, determining where and how to dispose of waste is a necessary part of economic and environmental policy-making.[14]
TOXMAP is a Geographic Information System (GIS) from the Division of Specialized Information Services[15] of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) that uses maps of the United States to help users visually explore data from the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Superfund and Toxics Release Inventory programs. TOXMAP is a resource funded by the US Federal Government. TOXMAP's chemical and environmental health information is taken from NLM's Toxicology Data Network (TOXNET)[16] and PubMed, and from other authoritative sources.