Waste disposal facilities and community response: tracing pathways from facility impacts to community attitude

Abstract

Host communities often very strongly oppose municipal waste disposal facilities despite the absence of very serious physical impacts. In order to effectively manage facility impacts and siting process to reduce host community opposition, waste management engineers and planners must understand the linkage between physical impacts and beliefs and the resulting attitudes in the host community. Physical impacts, community beliefs, and attitudes were assessed at two typical waste facilities, a landfill and an incinerator for municipal solid waste. Typical landfill impacts consist of water and air quality effects, odors, noise, and visual impacts; incinerators generate air quality impacts, visual and slight noise effects. While residents' general beliefs about facility impacts focus on obvious physical impacts (noise, odor, air emissions), residents' opinions of specific waste facilities comprise a broader set of physical and nonphysical impacts, including property value losses, community image impact, and loss of community control. These underlying, nonphysical impact beliefs are associated with exposure to obvious nuisance impacts and correlate strongly with residents' attitudes about the facility. Therefore, impact management efforts will be most effective if they, first, correctly identify underlying concerns and, then, manage the physical impacts that trigger them. Key words: waste disposal facilities, physical impacts, community beliefs, attitude, impact management, community acceptance.