Global Dumping Ground

Book excerpt: Reveals the dangers facing our planet due to the lucrative and scandal-ridden business of trafficking in hazardous waste. Too often, the industrial world's worst poisons end up in countries where regulations are weak and seldom enforced. No country figures more prominently in this trade than the United States, which--as the world's top producer of hazardous waste--generates more than 500 million tons annually. In what amounts to the export of Love Canal, hazardous cargoes from America--used car batteries, dry cleaning fluids, banned pesticides, and the like--find dumpsites in the developing nations.