Hazardous waste

A mock-up of an atomic waste barrel is pictured at the entrance of the annual meeting of German utility giant E.ON in Essen on May 3, 2012.

‘It’s worse than any site I’ve been to:’ radioactivity and a Missouri neighborhood

Environment

An underground waste dump on fire is rapidly approaching the site of a landfill with radioactive waste in a small town in Missouri. Environmental activists say the results could be disastrous. Childhood cancers in the area are already on the rise, so why isn’t anyone doing anything about it?

The World

America’s waste winds up in poorest countries

Group of scientists argue plastic should be treated as hazardous waste

Environment

Finland’s Nuclear Waste Disposal Dilemma

Health & Medicine

Coal Byproduct, Hazardous Waste?

The World

Japan sends radioactive water to sea

Global Politics

Japan is running out of space in the storage tanks that house radioactive water used to cool nuclear reactors. The excess is being dumped into the ocean. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with oceanography professor Bill Burnett about the effect on marine life.

The Living on Earth Almanac

This week, facts about… trash crime. Fifteen years ago, the New York State Assembly conducted hearings on the state’s garbage hauling industry which had become controlled by organized crime families. Some haulers were found to be illegally dumping toxic wastes into landfills.

Toxins Website

The Environmental Defense Fund has established a Website with information collected from Toxic Release Inventory forms that most high-volume facilities use for reporting certain chemicals released into the environment. The site also includes information about health effects. Host Steve Curwood logs on to www.scorecard.org. with David Roe from the Environmental Defense Fund.

International Proposals for Nuclear Waste Sites

Highly radioactive nuclear reactor waste should be securely stored, yet at reactors around the world it is stacking up in open pools. No country has built a permanent disposal site. But now some groups are proposing that international sites be built to take waste from many nations.

The World

Russian Nuclear Nexus

The Arctic port city of Murmansk is one of the most dangerous places on the planet. That’s because it hosts what may be the world’s largest collection of nuclear waste stored in precarious conditions. Much of the waste floats in rusting atomic submarines that can leak into the rivers and sea. As Bill Gasperini reports, […]