Beyond NIMBY : Hazardous Waste Siting in Canada and the United States

The virtual inability to open new hazardous waste management facilities in Canada and the United States stems directly from a form of community opposition so common and vehement that it is commonly identified as a syndrome: Not In My Back Yard (or NIMBY). Whether such facilities are proposed by governmental agencies or by private waste management firms, communities are usually shocked to learn that they have been selected to host these facilities and take collective action to thwart them. Such actions have blocked many poorly planned facilities and stimulated greater interest in preventive, waste reduction strategies. They have also, however, thwarted the adoption of new waste management technologies and created serious geographic inequities in the distribution of waste management responsibility across the two nations. Beyond NIMBY examines positive alternatives to prevailing approaches to siting and the familiar NIMBY outcomes. In particular, it shows that certain siting strategies in Canadian provinces and

cases provide a meaningful starting point to push the level of debate beyond atheoretical anecdotes of success and failure."Â-Publius [Publisher's text]

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