This article describes the ongoing debate as to the ability of the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) sewage sludge regulations to protect public health and the environment. These regulations, known as the EPA Part 503 Biosolids Rule, or “biosolids rule” for short, are based on risk assessments that some consider inadequate in that they do not address all potential risks. This article provides information about why environmentalists, farmers, and scientists are encouraging the USEPA to adopt a more protective program. It has been suggested that the Precautionary Principle, an emerging general principle of international environmental law, should be used in determining the safety of such a widely used practice as applying waste to the land.

Since 1993 the City of Bellevue, Washington, has managed a Closed Loop Oil Recycling and Education Program. A central aim of the program is to recover used oil generated by do-it-yourself oil changers. While collection volumes for used oil are accurately estimated, the amount of oil generated by do-it-yourselfers—and therefore available for collection—is less well known. The challenge is compounded by the unavailability of sales figures for new oil, and because considerable volumes of oil drip from, or are burned in, car engines. Additionally, estimates of do-it-yourself activity are imperfect, especially with regard to the average number of oil changes per year, and the variable oil capacity of engine crankcases. Finally, some oil volume is disposed along with used oil filters and is not recovered through do-it-yourself channels. This model and report attempt to generate a state-of-the-art methodology for determining available volumes of used do-it-yourself oil in a given jurisdiction. In this case, the City of Bellevue found that 23,642 gallons are being collected annually of an estimated 58,132 available, for a 40.7% collection rate. This rate is considerably higher than most other estimates around the country.

In spring 1995, the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) announced plans to “delist” over 24,000 sites from its inventory of potential Superfund sites known as CERCLIS (Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Information System). The Clinton Administration hoped that by taking sites that had a very low probability of harboring severe contamination off the federal inventory, they could lift the cloud of environmental uncertainty; and with a gentle federal boost, laissez-faire development would improve conditions in the neediest neighborhoods. Through a review of the delisted sites available via Land View III, local records on brownfield properties, interviews with brownfields coordinators, and Texas Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP) inventories, we tabulated the number of delisted sites that were included in the two redevelopment efforts in Texas—the federal brownfields program and state VCP. The most obvious element of this tabulation is the small correspondence between delisted sites and brownfield or VCP efforts. While there is legitimate reason to claim success for the brownfield and voluntary cleanup programs for stimulating redevelopment, they have had little impact on the delisted sites. A national assessment of the process might point to states where there is greater congruence and identify the steps necessary to create greater overlap nationwide.