There are four of these sites in Orange County, New York, where I was raised, and this paper will focus on these sites and the effects they had on the communities where they are located.
Toxic Waste Disposal:.
There are several different kinds of toxic waste materials and a couple of different methods of how they get into the environment. Any substance in large amounts can be harmful to humans, but toxic waste are those substances that can be detrimental or even fatal to humans even in very small doses, received either in food, water or even through the air. Toxic substances are put into the environment in several different ways; one is by an accident, say an oil spill, train wreck or nuclear waste leakage. Another way toxic chemicals are put into the environment is by humans doing it on purpose, such as spraying of pesticides or insecticides on crops or chemical waste disposal in specified sites by industries. This disposal can be done in a couple of different ways; deep well injection, burial, incineration, fly ash storage or storage in liquid form in sealed containers; this method is usually used by nuclear facilities (Daniels). .
Awareness of these toxic waste problems lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, which sets the levels which toxic substances can be released into the environment. The Federal Government then passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which set up a method on how to monitor toxic waste sites and disposal methods. RCRA had a seven step approach to dealing with toxic waste, identify the issue, set standards for disposal, set standards for transport, watch the operation of sites, create a waste disposal permit system, inspect, and fine if any one of these is in violation. This law was the first step in the creation of the Superfund Law (Daniels). .
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The Silent Spring:.
The public was not aware of these horrors of industry and the toxic chemicals released into their neighborhoods until a book by Rachel Carson, The Silent Spring, was published in 1962.