Legislative History With the advent of the industrial revolution in the late 1800's/early 1900's, our world was treated to many wonders that we now, heading into the twenty-first century, have taken for granted. Clothing, transportation, power tools, sports equipment, the list can go on about all the products that have made our lives easier.
The flip side to these miraculous achievements is the generation of waste. Today, consumer product companies are trying to minimize waste by offering many different types of reusable packaging. Recycling has taken on a larger role in society with many states and communities implementing mandatory programs to reduce the amount of solid waste we place in our landfills.
Back in the early days of the industrial revolution, there were no Treatment, Storage, and Disposal Facilities (TSDFs) to manage and destroy a company's hazardous waste. Companies weren't even required to determine if the waste they were generating at the end of the production line was categorized as hazardous. So the end result of most of the waste generated by industry was to dig a big hole somewhere on the property and fill in the hole with the waste generated by production. When that hole was filled, cap it off and dig out another hole. The saving grace for society was some companies had the environmental insight to apply liners, either natural (clay) or man-made (plastic or cloth) where they were dumping their waste to at least attempt catching the leachate.
For years, industries claimed they didn't realize what they were putting into the ground would have any effects on our environment. Since the advent of the environmental disciplines (mid-1960's), our society now realizes what a mistake that approach was. Even today, abandoned industrial sites and misused landfills are still being cleaned up through the Environmental Protection Agencies (EPA) "Superfund" program. Industry was not the only culprits, however, mom and pop shops, farmers, dry cleaning operations and other types of small businesses had just as much effect on polluting the environment.
Advent of RCRA In the early 1970's, the story of Love Canal, a housing development built over a capped industrial dumpsite in suburban Niagara Falls, New York, ran rampart in the media and took the public by surprise. Concern for this type of event happening in "our backyard" led to public demand for our legislative body to develop regulations, which would ensure the proper management of industrial wastes.
In 1965, Congress passed the Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA) (42 U.S.C. 6912) for the purpose of improving solid waste disposal methods. SWDA was amended several times, most significantly by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) of 1976 (42 U.S.C. 6921) and the Hazardous and Solid Waste Amendments (HSWA) of 1984; these acts collectively are known as RCRA.