Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T11:32:44.340Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cross-Media Transfers of Hazardous Wastes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 May 2017

Gilbert E. Metcalf ,
Daniel J. Dudek  and
Cleve E. Willis
Gilbert E. Metcalf
Affiliation:
Department of Economics at Harvard University
Daniel J. Dudek
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst
Cleve E. Willis
Affiliation:
Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst
Get access

Extract

The current issues of landfill bans, groundwater contamination, waste-end taxes and source reduction of hazardous wastes have rekindled interest in a systems view of environmental management. While this recent interest is new, the basic concept is not. The physical Law of Conservation of Mass as embodied in materials or mass balance has underlain most residuals management research (e.g. Ayres and Kneese [1969]; Kneese and Bower [1979]). As society grapples with the complex problem of toxic and hazardous chemical residues and their distribution in the environment, mass balance is receiving renewed attention in the form of cross-media transfers. The focus of this renewed interest is the movement and transformation of residuals among environmental media (soil, air and water) after discharge. Our early public lessons in applied ecology taught us that the environment is a single integrated system and that there are frequently unintended consequences associated with the human use of that environment. The contemporary lessons from the identification and cleanup of uncontrolled hazardous waste sites under the “Superfund” program lends a new impetus to our reconsideration of these concepts.

Type
AAEA/NAREA Invited Session: Economics of Hazardous Waste Disposal
Information
Northeastern Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , October 1984 , pp. 203 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © 1984 Northeastern Agricultural and Resource Economics Association 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ayres, R. and Kneese, A., “Production, Consumption, and Externalities,” American Economic Review 59 (1969):282–297.Google Scholar
Conservation Foundation, State of the Environment: An Assessment at Mid-Decade, Donnelley and Sons, Virginia, 1984.Google Scholar
Environmental Action Foundation, “Exposure”, No. 40/41, April/May 1984, p. 5.Google Scholar
Geoffrion, A. and Nauss, R., “Parametric and Postoptimality Analysis in Integer Linear Programming”, Management Science 23 (1977):453–466.Google Scholar
Kneese, A. and Bower, B., Environmental Quality and Residuals Management, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Lave, L., “Controlling Contradictions Among Regulations”, American Economic Review 74 (1984):471–475.Google Scholar
Lowe, J., Lewis, D., and Atkins, M., Total Environmental Control, Pergamon Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Marks, D., Hanrahan, D., and Rhodes, J., “Development of a Comprehensive Plan for Social and Hazardous Waste Management in the Commenwealth of Massachusetts,” Department of Civil Engineering Report 242, MIT, 1979.Google Scholar
Metcalf, G., Willis, C., and Dudek, D., “A Process Analysis of Electroplating Firm Response to Alternative Environmental Policies”, Massachusetts Experiment Station Publication No. 689, 1984.Google Scholar
Russell, C., “Residuals Management in Industry: A Case Study of Petroleum Refining”, Johns Hopkins University Press for Resources for the Future, Baltimore, 1973.Google Scholar
U.S. EPA, Economic Analysis of Proposed Pretreatment Standards for Existing Sources of the Electroplating Point Source Category, EPA 230/1-78-001, 1977.Google Scholar