Hazardous waste is being trucked across the border from Mexico and Canada, but the U.S. government has no idea how much. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Hazardous waste is being trucked across the border from Mexico and Canada, but the US
government has no idea how much. The GLRC’s Lester Graham reports:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency used to try to keep track of how much toxic
waste was trucked across the borders, but three years ago abandoned its own program.
A report in the San Diego Union-Tribune found the work was turned over to a private
contractor, but it was behind the data by two years when that project folded in 2003. The
newspaper reports the EPA now relies on a much smaller program operated by a non-
profit organization. It’s compiling numbers from paper manifests the truckers turn in at
the border.
Definitions of hazardous waste differ in Mexico and Canada. And if companies try to
classify toxic material as less than hazardous, then they can pay less for disposal. The
EPA says it plans to standardize a hazardous waste manifest form later this year to better
determine what’s coming in and how much is coming in.
For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.