ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with stress and concern over hazardous wastes impact on public confidence in the management system, on siting decisions and on health. It identifies the causes of stress and public concerns, including health effects. The subject of hazardous waste is a highly emotive one. Technical concerns, in terms of the effectiveness and appropriateness of certain treatment and disposal methods, are often subsumed within issues of social values, quality of life, economic impact, psychological impact, trust and confidence in industry and regulators, fairness in risk distribution, and acceptance of political decisions. Hazardous waste sites would be judged to be highly representative of environmental problems in general, despite, in the UK, the lack of evidence of major pollution incidents involving such sites. At the annual conference of the British medical association in July 1989 a two-year study into the consequences of the importation of hazardous waste on public health was announced.
