inerator-generated ash, particularly after residents sued to compel the city to remove thousands of tons of ash residue piled up near the city’s main incinerators. Some of the ash had been shipped to Virginia, Ohio and other states, but it was rejected because of local protests. With its land-based disposal options under attack, the city finally arranged with two private companies to ship the ash abroad. A cargo ship named the Khian Sea traveled all around the world and not one country would let the ash be disposed of in their land. The ash barge after a long time voyage eventually dumped the ash in the Indian Ocean.The Philadelphia experience has become the rule rather than the exception in the costly and sometimes bizarre search to dump the trash. Exporting scandals—in which incinerator ash or other wastes are either unloaded illegally or under questionable circumstances—have taken place in a number of African and Latin American countries, such as Nigeria and Guinea-Bissau, and even in England, which has become a haven for garbage, because of its relatively lax standards. The solid waste dilemma is not limited to the issue of garbage export. It ultimately raises questions about the source, volume, and nature of the wastes that are being generated. Policy-makers have placed a special emphasis on disposal technologies as they seek a solution they hope will be sufficiently risk-free and cost-effective.Despite the enormous industrial changes of the early 1900s and the resulting growth and change in the waste stream, the garbage issue appeared to be under control. Solid waste management continued to be an exercise in developing new, more comprehensive disposal technologies, primarily land based. Land disposal offered a number of advantages. The availability of cheap real estate at the outskirts of the growing cities and suburbs of the 1940s and 1950s allowed such methods to be developed at a relatively low cost....
