ABSTRACT
Involvement of the federal government in regulation of solid and hazardous wastes was not part of the environmental movement of the early 1960s [1]. Environmentalists had given priority to supporting legislation that would improve air and water quality. Moreover, states and municipalities had long had the responsibility for managing municipal waste collection, waste dumps, and sanitary landfi lls. In colonial America and the agrarian period that followed, farmers disposed of their own solid wastes, much of which was recycled as fertilizer for soil and crop enrichment. Towns and cites during this period continued the longstanding practice of creating open waste dumps, usually located at a distance from occupied areas. Human wastes were disposed of in privies and some cities established rudimentary sewage management facilities. These were local responsibilities; the federal government simply was not involved until early in the twentieth century.
