"Electroplater Who Claims He Has No Hazardous Waste" Case
In the "Electroplater Who Claims He Has No Hazardous Waste" case, the facility had poor waste management. Still, its owner tried to hide the truth about its ignorance on proper waste disposal. As per the waste disposal regulations, the company should be shut down or be fined if it does not follow the right procedures on disposing of its products (Brechtelsbauer, & Shah 2020). Thus, according to my evaluation, the firm's owner was trying to act smart to prevent his company from being shut down as well as avoiding other consequences. According to the inspector, there were two main issues found in the company regarding waste disposal and safety and health issues. First, containers of the electroplating chemical were scattered throughout the ancient and crumbing six-story house. The electroplating chemicals are unfriendly to the people's health and the entire environment, and thus, by keeping the containers in that house was exposing people's health to great danger. However, the owner of this electroplating company denied if vessels were wastes and insisted that he had a plan of re-using them in the future. Thus, as per the company owner, he argued that the containers were not discarded backing up the inspector's claims. However, when the vessels were tested, it turned out that the titleholder of the facility was only trying to cover up his poor disposal management since the containers were virtually useless and could not be used further in the future.
Besides, it is costly to carry out proper waste disposal, and that was one of the reasons why the owner of this company was avoiding it to minimize the input cost of the company. When the containers were declared total waste by the federal government, the USEPA expended $2 million to secure the site and get rid of the vessels. From the cost which was used to clean up the mess, then it is clear that the company never wanted to incur such a fee on proper disposal of the containers. Also, the building was not sound and was in danger of collapsing, thus threatening the lives of workers of the company. From this case, it is clear that the employees were not contented with the safety measures of this company as they were complaining about the deprived waste management, health, and safety strategies in the electroplating company. The owner of the company was ignoring health and safety measures. As of this case, it is clear that there were green fogs of fumes in the workplace due to the plating operations, which posed a threat to the workers' health. The employees claimed that the fumes caused irritation and breathing problems. Thus, the owner had not aligned the best ways to manage the fumes, and instead, he put the workers under risks of potential health problems. Besides, the company possessed a large plating tank, which was estranged into two sections using a single plate made of steel. On one side of the tank, there was a cyanide solution, while on the other part, there was an acid bath. It was careless and risky to divide the tank into two parts and put each section with dangerous substances such that by any chance the two substances mix, there would be a production of deadly cyanide, which would be a threat to the health of the people. The fact that the tank was divided by a single plate of steel plate, it means there was a high possibility that someday, the steel plate would be worn out and the two substances would mix to create cyanide gas.
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Corby Toxic Waste Case
The Corby toxic waste case is a similar case to the "Electroplater Who Claims He Has No Hazardous Waste" case concerning poor waste disposal management. In both cases, there was total ignorance of the proper waste management as they were exposing people to toxic wastes. The Corby Borough Council was found responsible for laxity, crankiness of the public, and a breach of the statutory task for its reclamations of the Corby Steelwork in the town (South 2016). The Corby was a steel-making center through the establishments of the Lloyds and Stewarts productions site. The company was not having proper disposal of its wastes; instead, it was disposing of the toxic wastes within the facility parameter, thus exposing the workers to health threats. After a while, the poisonous waste had accumulated to dozens of tons, which was posing an environmental risk. When the plant became unprofitable, the possessors of the British Steel Corporation opted to shut the site. Therefore, the Corby Borough Council decided on demolishing, excavating, and redeveloping the area as a part of the urban redevelopment. This operation involved the transportation of the waste via populated locations to a particular quarry. The toxic waste was massive that the council had to use about 200 lorries every day to transport the waste (South, 2016). However, they did not emphasize on proper disposal since the trucks carrying the waste were not closed and they would spill the sludge over the roads. Due to this case, the company was sued with claims that it caused congenital disabilities (Dyer 2009). However, just like in the electroplater company's case, they denied arguing that there was no substantial evidence that was linking them to the congenital disabilities, but the judge ruled that the toxic wastes could have been the cause of the defects.
References
Brechtelsbauer, E., & Shah, S. (2020). Update on pharmaceutical waste disposal regulations: Strategies for success. American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy , 77 (7), 574-582.
Dyer, C. (2009). Judge rules that birth defects could have been caused by toxic waste from steelworks.
South, N. (2016). Green criminology and brown crime: Despoliation, disposal, and de-manufacturing in global resource industries. In Hazardous waste and pollution (pp. 11-25). Springer, Cham.
