We’ve noted the oil spill waste problem before, and what to do with it, and now PBS News Hour has posted an informative new video report from Harrison County, Mississippi. County officials there raised enough hell for British Petroleum to stop dumping it into the local landfill, but not before leaving behind 1,400 tons of solid waste. One county official likens it to somebody dumping refuse in your front yard, apologizing, and then moving it…and dumping it in your back yard.
A viewing note: A landfill operator offers the reassuring information that, hey, this isn’t “hazardous waste.” And it’s not classified as hazardous, but only because it was specifically exempted from that classification in what a senior EPA official has described as a political – rather than a scientific – decision.
Trust me, dumping oil spill waste in local landfills is dangerous in both the short and long term.
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