Introduction: Strategies for the Protection of the Environment

Abstract

Although the contamination of our environment by industrial wastes has been recognized as a major problem since the 1960s, progress towards its resolution is very slow. Until recently hazardous wastes have been stored or dumped at landfills and waste-ponds, and into rivers, lakes, and oceans. There is increasing evidence that storage and disposal in land-fills is not an effective strategy, and that incineration has the potential to disperse a liquid/solid waste into the atmosphere. The Environmental Protection Agency has catalogued thousands of sites in the United States that are severely contaminated with hazardous materials (PCBs, heavy metals, pesticides, chlorinated solvents, and wastes from the petroleum, chemical, pharmaceutical, electronics, and manufacturing industries), and has convinced Congress to appropriate in excess of $100 billion for the remediation of these Superfund sites. To date these funds have been used mainly to investigate, to evaluate, and to litigate Superfund sites, rather than to remediate.