Paper Number: EE-0230
Document Date: 02/01/1977
Author(s): Moll, Kendall, Baum, Sanford, Carpender, Erwin, Dresch, Francis, Wright, Rose, Jones, George, Starry, Claire, Starrett, David
Subject Area(s):
Hazardous Waste, Risk Benefit, Cadmium, Asbestos, Risk Assessment, Equity, Cost Analysis
Keywords: Hazardous Waste, Risk Benefit, Cadmium, Asbestos, Risk Assessment, Equity, Cost Analysis
Abstract:
This study develops a decision framework for evaluating hazardous waste standards in terms of social risks and product benefits. The analysis focuses of cadmium and asbestos as examples of land waste disposal problems, but it also estimates waste quantities in air and water. Effects of uncertainties in the individual estimates on overall confidence limits, resultant decision criteria, and research needs are evaluated. The approach encompasses the full chain of variables leading to decision criteria, including (1) wastes escaping into the various media from each step in the hazardous material flow process, including extraction, refining, manufacturing, use, and disposal; (2) cost and effectiveness of alternative waste control measures; (3) their economic, employment, and balance-of-trade effects; (4) environmental dispersion mechanisms; (5) human exposures, dose-damage relationships, and resultant mortalities; (6) risk/benefit relationships, and; (7) equity distribution, social acceptance, and other independent criteria.
Report available at EPA's National Service Center for Environmental Publications.
This paper is part of the Environmental Economics Research Inventory.
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Hazardous Wastes: A Risk Benefit Framework Applied to Cadmium and Asbestos (PDF)(258 pp, 2 MB,
02/01/1977,
EE-0230, EPA-600/5-77-002)
This study develops a decision framework for evaluating hazardous waste standards in terms of social risks and product benefits. The analysis focuses of cadmium and asbestos as examples of land waste disposal problems, but it also estimates waste quantities in air and water. Effects of uncertainties in the individual estimates on overall confidence limits, resultant decision criteria, and research needs are evaluated.