Chapter 17
Solid and Hazardous
Waste Law
Laws controlling environmental pollution are discussed in this text in terms of their
evolution from the courtroom through Congressional committees to administrative
agencies. The gaps in common law are filled by statutory laws adopted by Congress
and state legislatures and implemented by administrative agencies such as the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and state departments of natural resources.
For several reasons, this evolutionary process was particularly rapid in the area of solid
waste law.
For decades, and in fact centuries, solid waste was disposed of on land no one
really cared about. Municipal refuse was historically taken to a landfill in the middle
of a woodland, and industrial waste, which was often hazardous, was generally "piled
out back" on land owned by the industry itself. In both cases, environmental protection
and public health were not perceived as issues. Solid wastes were definitely out of sight
and conveniently out of mind.
Only relatively recently has public interest in solid waste disposal sites reached
the level of concern that equals that for water and air pollution. Public interest was
triggered in part by the rate at which land was being filled with waste and by the
increasing cost of land for disposal. Some local courtrooms and zoning commissions
have dealt with siting selected disposal facilities over the years, but most decisions
simply resulted in the city or industry hauling the waste a little farther away from
the complaining public. At these remote locations, solid waste was not visible like
the smokestacks that emitted pollutants into the atmosphere and the pipes discharging
wastewater into the rivers. Pollution of the land and underground aquifers from solid
waste disposal facilities was and is much more subtle.
Federal and state environmental statutes did not initially address subtle effects.
The highly visible problem of air pollution was addressed in a series of clean air acts,
and the other obvious pollution was confronted in the water pollution control laws.
Finally, as researchers dug deeper into environmental and public health concerns, they
realized that even obscure landfills and holding lagoons had the potential to pollute the
land significantly and to impact public health. Subsurface and surface water supplies,
and even local air quality, are threatened by solid waste.
This chapter addresses solid waste law in two major sections: nonhazardous waste
and hazardous waste. The division reflects the regulatory philosophy for dealing with341