Hidden in Plain Sight: The Environmental Health Impacts of Solid Waste Dumping

Burning waste in a northern Great Plains community, USA.
Photo credit: J. Doyle, University of New Mexico’s Center for Native Environmental Health Equity Research

By Joseph Hoover, Ph.D.
University of Arizona
Posted: November 21, 2024

It’s a cool summer morning in the Northern Plains. From several miles away, I observe a tall plum of white and gray smoke rising into the sky, contrasting starkly against a bright blue backdrop. As I drive closer, my nose recognizes the acrid smoke filling my car. At first, the scent is an annoyance, tickling the back of my throat.

As I exit the state highway, the smoke fills my lungs, and the smell is inescapable. The wind then kicks up, and the smoke briefly clears before settling again in a small valley.

This smoke is from an unregulated solid waste dump site up the hill that has caught fire—a site containing household and agricultural wastes, plastics, and many other types of debris.

Where There’s Smoke …

What happens when this debris is burned or left to weather? What are the potential human health impacts of exposure to these materials and chemicals? These questions motivate researchers and community-partners at the University of New Mexico’s Center for Native Environmental Health Equity Research. Along with our academic partners at Little Big Horn College, Montana State University, Oklahoma State University, and the University of Arizona, we are working in partnership with Indigenous people from three Tribal Nations to co-produce research projects and engagement activities designed to identify, characterize, and assess the environmental and health impacts of solid waste dumping and burning.

Waste streams from unregulated waste dumping and burning is increasingly composed of plastic materials that do not degrade like natural products, leading to the creation of nano and microplastic particles in soil, water, air, and food. In these plastic materials, there are as many as 10,000 different additive chemicals mixed with plastic polymers that make them flexible, heat resistant, and/or durable. While a number of these additives are associated with obesity, diabetes, and thyroid disorders, the health impacts of more than 50% remains unknown.

Through community engagement activities and ongoing dialogue, we recognized a need to deepen knowledge of how plastics and the many chemicals associated with these materials move through and are changed by the environment when disposed of at unmanaged dumpsites. In turn, our community-based team members expressed a need to understand what chemicals are found at these sites and their impact on human health from exposures produced by waste burning.

While many communities maintain solid waste disposal programs and actively discourage unregulated disposal through dumping and burning, these practices remain a persistent challenge. The challenge arises from structural inequities that impact waste disposal options. Limited solid waste disposal options for residents are often a result of diminished employment opportunities, stretched economic resources, long travel distances, and competing policy needs that create a pronounced but frequently inadequately met needs for solid waste management.

Partners in Advocacy and Cleanup

We are working in partnership with our community-based team members to document and assess waste fires. Using remote sensing technology and reports by team members, we’ve developed community-specific timelines for burn events and profiled solid waste burn events. We have documented the broad geographic spread of these dump sites and fires in communities across the United States. This work led our team to build and extend a sensor network that includes meteorological stations and air monitors for enhanced community-level environmental monitoring.

An unregulated solid waste dump site in a southwest community, USA.
Photo credit: L. James, University of New Mexico’s Center for Native Environmental Health Equity Research

Our team has created outreach materials tailored to the values of Indigenous peoples to raise awareness about carcinogenic chemicals measured in smoke from burnt solid waste in their communities. Through these efforts, we have also advised community groups on evidence-based site cleanup methods, policies, and more.

Together, our efforts have resulted in greater awareness of the chemical exposures that may result from burning solid waste, the cleanup of several dump sites, and adjustments to site usage, leading to reductions in unintended combustion of solid waste.

Clearer Skies Ahead

We envision a world where community leaders have access to the resources needed to reduce unregulated dumping of solid waste and implement policy initiatives that result in less plastic waste generation. Addressing the structural challenges that contribute to unregulated dumping and burning of solid waste may reduce human and environmental exposure to harmful chemicals, reduce the transmission of plastics into local environments, and center community values and priorities in initiatives to address this challenge.

We will continue pursuing research in partnership with Indigenous Peoples, respecting and honoring those relationships through our actions, and supporting efforts to improve community health and well-being.

Joseph Hoover, Ph.D., is an environmental scientist based in the College of Life, Agriculture, & Environmental Science at the University of Arizona and a core faculty affiliate with the University of Arizona's Indigenous Resilience Center. His research program addresses environmental exposure and health disparities using community engaged research methods and geospatial technology. He employs a community-driven research approach to develop sustaining partnerships with communities, which includes project co-development and training. Dr. Hoover co-leads the Center for Native Environmental Health Equity Research, which is funded by the National Institutes on Minority Health and Health Disparities and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.