Waste Dumping Health Effects and Laws

Waste Dumping Health effects and Laws

Due to a history of poor management, monitoring, and remediation of solid waste facilities has come back to hurt people with environmental risks leading to health risk.

Laws on Hazardous Waste date back to as early as 1297 AD a law was passed to clear all refuse in front of households in Britain due to the increasing amount of waste deposits in town but the law was ignored by many people due to negligence and recklessness.

As late as July 9, 2002, the U.S. approved the development of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The state of Nevada complained of nuclear waste respiratory position could leak to the dump and create serious long-term health risks to the citizens of Nevada. Large-scale radioactive releases could occur through earthquakes being the 4th seismic activity in U.S., volcano or hydrothermal activity at Yucca Mountain. Nuclear waste transportation accidents could also occur. Due to the complaints on July 23, 2002, President Bush signed House Joint Resolution 87, allowing the DOE to take the next step in establishing a safe repository in which to store our nation's nuclear waste. These step towards precautions were not enough compared to the potential long-term health risk of nuclear waste. As a result the Obama committee cut all funding for the project in 2010.

The initiative that the Obama committee has taken to changing the handling of the hazardous waste respiratory on Yucca Mountain is a step toward better hazardous waste management. Due to nuclear waste respiratory cut back the people of Nevada health is not at risk. More of proper management hazardous waste can lead to a better environment.

The U.S. environmental administrative rules that the landfill may not be located in an area where facility constitutes a potential safety hazard to the public but this law is violated by many facilities dumping hazardous waste and results in diseases such as breast cancers, other cancers and reproductive disorders. Pollution from the landfill would affect fishing and other tourist and recreational activities. Inevitably, land values will decrease. Also effecting the ground and surface water pollution would badly affect agriculture, livestock and the people near by.

The Agency of Environmental recognizes "that potential operational problems associated with leachate recirculation, such as increase in leachate production, clogging of the leachate collection system, buildup of hydraulic head within the unit, increase in air emissions and odor problems, and increase in potential leachate pollutant releases due to drift and or run-off, may result in adverse impacts on human health and the environment". The potential for surface-water contamination increases in the rainy season because of flooding in low-lying areas in the proximity of open dumps.