Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionstream of waste. In the domain of production big corporations have consistently andfiercely resisted regulatory ‘intrusion’. As documented by sociologist Andrew Szasz,the first waste regulation battles in the US, in the early 1970s, were fought by analliance of polluters including Dow, Dupont, Union Carbide and various steelmakerson the proxy terrain of packaging waste. Dow protested to lawmakers:We object to the absolute blanket authority to control productionprocesses and composition … Orderly and timely investment of capitaland replacement of plants would be seriously impeded… it would lock intechnology to any given point in time … create artificial cost and supply/demand distortions … Authority to control production, compositionand distribution of products … would be devastating to free enterprisecommerce. [Quoted in Szasz 1994: 19]Dupont joined them with the argument:We believe that the disposal of wastes ought to be regulated instead ofregulating the nature and use of the product or the type of manufacturingprocess used … greatest emphasis should be placed on establishing standardswhich assure that the ultimate disposal method is satisfactory. [19]And the American Petroleum Institute was blunt:No specific requirements or prohibitions should be set governing therecovery, reuse or disposal of industrial wastes … Generators should be freeto increase or decrease waste production rates, terminate waste production,treat their own wastes, and negotiate treatment or disposal service contractsin a free and competitive market. [19]Lawmakers then obediently confined themselves to the control of disposal of theever growing waste stream whose production was placed beyond public control. Theimmediate consequence was the need for ever more waste disposal facilities and, as thePetroleum Institute indicated, further opportunities for business to profit as the statevacated the market for disposal facilities. This in turn led to an explosion of protestsagainst the siting of toxic waste dumps – mostly in poor black neighbourhoods – andto the growth of a social movement when groups opposing these dumps coalesced intothe environmental justice movement in the US in the 1980s.- 80 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation