Philadelphia v. New Jersey

Landfills are the most commonly used methods of disposing of hazardous waste. However, landfills are considered to be an inefficient and dangerous means of waste disposal. There are over six thousand hazardous waste landfills in the United States. Some of these landfills are owned by companies designed to deal exclusively with waste disposal, while others are run by companies who generate large amounts of hazardous waste by-product in the production of goods.

When hazardous waste businesses fail, the government is left to clean up the abandoned sites. The Comprehensive Environment Response Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 (or Superfund) was established, in large part, to deal with such eventualities. Due to federal regulations established in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which tightened restrictions on where landfills could be established, there has been a shortage of landfill space in the U.S.