Toxic Wastes

Toxic waste is a liquid, solid, or sludge that can cause fatality or serious permanent bodily damage to humans or animals at low doses. When released into the air, water, or land, toxic wastes pose a long-term risk to health and environment.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines four major types of hazardous wastes: F, K, P, and U. The F list includes wastes from various industrial sources, such as spent solvent and waste byproducts from wood preserving, metal production, petroleum refinery wastewater treatment sludge, and multisource leachate. The K list emphasizes the most common sources of waste, including pharmaceuticals manufacturing, petroleum refining, iron and steel production, wood preservation, and manufacturing of explosives and chemicals. The P list and the [Page 924]U list include commercial chemical products that are hazardous when they are discarded, such as commercial chemical products and container and spill residues. The P list chemicals are acute hazardous wastes and those on the U list are defined simply as toxic wastes. The EPA categorizes toxic wastes that are mixed with radioactive waste (wastes originating from the production of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons) as its own category of waste.

The EPA relies on scientific evidence when defining the harm and toxicity of particular substances, although toxicity and risk are debated among scholars, government officials, businesses that created the waste, workers in factories producing the waste, and citizens living near toxic sites. Often, environmental activists define particular chemicals or sites as toxic before government officials. Sometimes government officials, citing the need to wait for clear scientific evidence, have been initially reluctant to define particular sites or toxins as hazardous or toxic. The amount of government funds given for cleanup and the definitional thresholds for waste, hazardous waste, and toxic waste vary with political administration. For example, in November 2010, the Obama administration announced that it was pushing tougher EPA regulations that would force cleanup of thousands of formerly ignored dioxin sites across the country. The difference between legal waste, hazardous waste, and toxic waste often is less a matter of objective measurement of risk and more a matter of historical and political perspective.

Common Toxics

A common toxic waste is low-toxicity waste (for example, leaded soil). This type of waste is unlikely to migrate and thus it is placed under the ground, hard coverings are placed around it, and it is used for public, commercial, or industrial purposes, [Page 925]such as parks, athletic fields, or shopping malls. EPA statistics from the National Toxics Inventory show that this is one of the fastest-growing types of toxic waste.

A worker in a hazardous-material (hazmat) suit sprays a toxic sealant on a concrete wall during construction. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) must wait on clear scientific data before categorizing a toxic waste from an industrial or common source or from a commercial chemical product. In the meantime, the risk posed by these substances is debated among scholars, government officials, environmental activists, companies creating the substances, and citizen who live near toxic sites.

DDT was discovered in 1939 and is one of the best-known synthetic pesticides. It controlled malaria during World War II and was subsequently used as a popular commercial and agricultural insecticide. Some claim that DDT is not toxic, while others note carcinogenic or lethal properties. DDT was central to Rachel Carson's 1962 Silent Spring, a book that helped motivate the modern environmental movement.

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