Solid Waste Disposal ACT Summary

Major Acts of Congress
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Eugene H. Robinson, Jr.

The Solid Waste Disposal Act (SWDA) (P.L. 89-272, 79 Stat. 992) became law on October 20, 1965. In its original form, it was a broad attempt to address the solid waste problems confronting the nation through a series of research projects, investigations, experiments, training, demonstrations, surveys, and studies. The decade following its passage revealed that the SWDA was not sufficiently structured to resolve the growing mountain of waste disposal issues facing the country. As a result, significant amendments were made to the act with the passage of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976 (RCRA), which became law on October 21, 1976. The SWDA as amended in 1976 is more commonly known as the RCRA.

In the statute's findings, Congress indicated two reasons for the necessity of the SWDA: first, advancements in technology resulted in the creation of vastly more amounts and types of wastes than in the past; and second, rapid growth in the nation's metropolitan areas had caused these areas to experience significant financial, management, and technical problems associated with waste disposal. At the time SWDA was passed, there were ten other pending bills related to the subject of solid wastes and their potential impacts to public health. Besides totally revamping the SWDA's solid waste program in 1976, the RCRA also created a national "cradle to grave" hazardous waste management tracking program to deal with the nation's annual production of three to four billion tons of discarded material.