This volume analyzes the politics of hazardous waste siting and explores promising new strategies for siting facilities. Existing approaches to waste siting facilities have almost entirely failed, across all industrialized countries, largely because of community or NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) opposition. This volume examines a new strategy, voluntary choice siting—a process requiring mutual decisions negotiated between facility developers and the host communities. This bottom-up approach preserves democratic rights, recognizes the importance of public perceptions, and addresses issues of equity.
In this collection, an interdisciplinary group of experts probes recent examples of waste facilities siting in the United States, Canada, Germany, and Japan. Both the successes and the failures presented offer practical insights into the siting process. The book includes an introductory review of the literature on facility siting and the NIMBY phenomenon as well as instructive essays on the use of voluntary processes in facilities siting.
This book will be of value to policymakers, industry, and environmental groups, as well as to those working in environmental studies and engineering, political science, public health, geography, planning, and business economics.
Table of Contents
Editor's Introduction
The NIMBY Phenomenon and Approaches to Facility Siting
Don Munton
Part 1: Getting Beyond NIMBY: Cases
Voluntary Siting of Hazardous Waste Facilities in Western Canada
Geoffrey Castle and Don Munton
Alternatives to NIMBY Gridlock: Voluntary Approaches to Radioactive Waste Facility Siting in Canada and the United States
Barry Rabe, William C. Gunderson, and Peter T. Harbage
Democratic Dialogue and Acceptable Risks: The Politics of High-Level Nuclear Waste Disposal in the United States
Michael Kraft
Hazardous Waste Management and Facility Siting in California
David Morell
Siting Hazardous Waste Facilities, Japanese Style
Don Munton
Siting of Hazardous Waste Incinerators in Germany: From Political Imposition to Public Involvement
Robert Seeliger
Part 2: Public Perceptions
Community Risk Perception and Waste Management in Three Communities at Different Stages in the Siting Process
Clyde Hertzman and Aleck Ostry
Worrying About Waste: Diagnosis and Prescription
Susan Elliott and S. Martin Taylor
Part 3: Options and Strategies
Using Co-Management to Build Community Support for Waste Facilities
Alun Richards
Voluntary Procedures for Siting Noxious Facilities: Lotteries, Auctions and Benefit-Sharing
Howard Kunreuther
Directions for Engineering Contributions to Successfully Siting Hazardous Waste Facilities
Christopher Zeiss
Conclusion
