The impression that we no longer need to be concerned with the waste generated by our affluent society may be misleading. The development of so-called mega-landfills has made it possible to deposit a large amount of waste far from the cities and suburbs where the waste is generated, but environmental activists claim these facilities encourage the production of ever more garbage and may not be environmentally safe. Environmental justice advocates claim that much of the burden of storing our waste has been given to poor, minority, and rural communities, which often agree to the siting of garbage-processing facilities in the hopes that they will create jobs. Rather than solving the problem, then, have we in fact dumped our refuse problem on the poor and politically less powerful? - Introduction. This book is a collection of articles debating whether recycling is environmentally and economically successful, whether specific types of waste pose a threat, and whether new technologies can solve waste problems.