Title

Resolving The Dilemmas Of Hazardous Waste Management. Public Resistance And The Response Of Business

Abstract

This work focusses on the important practical question: Under what circumstances will communities accept hazardous facilities? Most of the answers to this question - both in the academic literature and in applied fields - begin with an implicit economic model. Opposition to hazardous waste facilities, according to this model, is a function of two possible imperfections: poor information about safety or lack of recognition of economic benefits. Yet much of what this literature reveals is that people chronically overestimate the risks associated with treatment facilities (or other low-risk technologies) and that these assessments do not change in the face of increased knowledge, assurances of public monitoring, or economic compensations. The seeming intransigence of public dispproval, well-documented in the relevant literature from political science, economics, and public policy, has led us beyond the economic model to an investigation of the cultural model of public opposition. Continued opposition, according to the cultural theory, depends on the success of certain adversarial elite groups (environmental organizations and the media, for example) in mobilizing latent public distrust of business and government. Thus, public acceptance depends on the ability of business leaders and scientific experts to demonstrate the viability of treatment techniques in a way that addresses the cultural problem directly. The state-wide survey of public attitudes that is being administered attempts to get at the cultural roots of opposition and acceptance.

Publication Date

9-1-1990

Publication Title

Journal of Hazardous Materials

Volume

24

Issue

2-3

Number of Pages

298-299

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

0025493815 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0025493815

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