ABSTRACT
Community opposition to toxic waste disposal is primarily based on the argument that the companies are insensitive about the effects on human and animal health and on the environment. Methods of disposal, whether they be treatment, recovery, recycling, landfill or incineration, are not, the communities argue, as safe as the waste industry would like to believe they are. Wastes which are defined hazardous or special (also known as toxic) are not always landfilled and/ or incinerated separately, but are frequently mixed with other wastes before or during disposal. It is this method of waste management that communities are worried about. "We don't know what is going in and we don't know what is coming out. Of course we fear for our health and our children's health," is a frequent complaint. "Fear of the unknown," is another often-heard cry. HMIP, the principal regulating authority for air emissions, has believed since its inception that the end-products (emissions from incineration) of toxic waste disposal are correctly monitored and are within British and EC statutory limits. The waste disposal industry says the same, yet it is worth noting the attitude of the National Association of Waste Disposal Contractors when they welcomed the Environmental Protection Bill of 1990. "Any control system is only as good as its enforcement and unless the Government ensures that the right control authorities with adequate resources are available the new measures will not work."l The communities opposed to toxic development have known, for most of the eighties, that "enforcement" is merely a word in a nebulous vocabulary and that "adequate resources" are not and have not been available to regulating authorities. The waste disposal industry is also aware that government and the regulating authorities do not and cannot adequately monitor the industry and that the communities have no trust in self regulation. Yet the waste disposal or waste management industry will tell you it cannot understand why there is so much complaint.
