was tested to show the amount the people who were exposed to lead. of the exposed population, the proportion of women of childbearing age was relatively equal across the three countries. geographical distribution of tsip sites in argentina and uruguay with dalys resulting from lead exposure geographical distribution of tsip sites in mexico with dalys resulting from lead exposure the exposure data were collected from a total of 129 hazardous waste sites distributed across argentina (n = 23), mexico (n = 62), and uruguay (n = 44). in figs. 1 and 2 the sites of geographical distributions are shown. an estimated population of 316,703 individuals were at risk of exposure (mean = 2455; median = 250 per site), which is approximately 0.19% of the total population of all three countries. there was an estimation of 80,021 individuals who were women of childbearing age (15–49 years of age), and 122,084 individuals who were younger than 18 years of age. dioxins and solid waste disposal in campania, italy in recent years in the region of campania, italy there has been a rise in illegal dumping and burning of toxic and solid waste. in response to this, there has been a rise of dangerous chemical molecules like dioxins that are carcinogenic, which implies that they have the potential to cause cancer, that is appearing in humans and animals. for example, there has been a recent increase in sheep that have been born in contaminated areas that have, “higher rates of chromosome fragility, higher mortality, and a higher incidence of abnormal fetal development when compared with sheep raised in non-contaminated areas.” to assess the causal relations between cancer mortality and congenital malformations in humans coming from illegal dumping a map was drawn using the geographical locations of the sites. as one can see most of these sites are located in campania where naples and caserta are based. the spread of dioxin through food consumption is primarily due to the animal products from the animals that were raised in the geographical locations where dioxins were the highest. researchers tested mammalian milk from these areas and saw that the levels of dioxin were over the suggested amount. this was greatly seen as an issue because humans have the highest capability to concentrate the dioxin in their fat tissues. to test this, 94 women in campania who were breastfeeding had samples of their breast milk tested and it was found that every woman had dioxin in their breastmilk. a correlation was also discovered that the older you were the more dioxin was in your breastmilk. handling and disposal main article: hazardous waste disposal one of the biggest problems with today's toxic material is how to dispose of it properly. before the passage of modern environmental laws (in the us, this was in the 1970s), it was legal to dump such wastes into streams, rivers, and oceans, or bury them underground in landfills. the us clean water act, enacted in 1972, and rcra, enacted in 1976, created nationwide programs to regulate the handling and disposal of hazardous wastes. the agriculture industry uses over 800,000 tons of pesticides worldwide annually that contaminate soils, and eventually infiltrate into groundwater, which can contaminate drinking water supplies. the oceans can be polluted from the stormwater runoff of these chemicals as well. toxic waste in the form of petroleum oil can either spill into the oceans from pipe leaks or large ships, but it can also enter the oceans from everyday citizens dumping car oil into the rainstorm sewer systems. disposal is the placement of waste into or on the land. disposal facilities are usually designed to permanently contain waste and prevent the release of harmful pollutants to the environment. the most common hazardous waste disposal practice is placement in a land disposal unit such as a landfill, surface impoundment, waste pile, land treatment unit, or injection well. land disposal is subject to requirements under epa's land disposal restrictions program. injection wells are regulated under the federal underground injection control program. organic wastes can be destroyed by incineration at high temperatures. however, if the waste contains heavy metals or radioactive isotopes, these must be separated and stored, as they cannot be destroyed. the method of storage will seek to immobilize the toxic components of the waste, possibly through storage in sealed containers, inclusion in a stable medium such as glass or a cement mixture, or burial under an impermeable clay cap. waste transporters and waste facilities may charge fees; consequently, improper methods of disposal may be used to avoid paying these fees. where the handling of toxic waste is regulated, the improper disposal of toxic waste may be punishable by fines or prison terms. burial sites for toxic waste and other contaminated brownfield land may eventually be used as greenspace or redeveloped for commercial or industrial use. history of us toxic waste regulation the rcra governs the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. the toxic substances control act (tsca), also enacted in 1976, authorizes the epa to collect information on all new and existing chemical substances, as well as to control any substances that were determined to cause unreasonable risk to public health or the environment. the superfund law, passed in 1980, created a cleanup program for abandoned or uncontrolled hazardous waste sites. there has been a long ongoing battle between communities and environmentalists versus governments and corporations about how strictly and how fairly the regulations and laws are written and enforced. that battle began in north carolina in the late summer of 1979, as epa's tsca regulations were being implemented. in north carolina, pcb-contaminated oil was deliberately dripped along rural piedmont highways, creating the largest pcb spills in american history and a public health crisis that would have repercussions for generations to come. the pcb-contaminated material was eventually collected and buried in a landfill in warren county, but citizens' opposition, including large public demonstrations, exposed the dangers of toxic waste, the fallibility of landfills than in use, and epa regulations allowing landfills to be built on marginal, but politically acceptable sites. warren county citizens argued that the toxic waste landfill regulations were based on the fundamental assumption that the epa's conceptual dry-tomb landfill would contain the toxic waste. this assumption informed the siting of toxic waste landfills and waivers to regulations that were included in epa's federal register. for example, in 1978, the base of a major toxic waste landfill could be no closer than five feet from groundwater, but this regulation and others could be waived. the waiver to the regulation concerning the distance between the base of a toxic waste landfill and groundwater allowed the base to be only a foot above ground water if the owner/operator of the facility could demonstrate to the epa regional administrator that a leachate collection system could be installed and that there would be no hydraulic connection between the base of the landfill and groundwater. citizens argued that the waivers to the siting regulations were discriminatory mechanisms facilitating the shift from scientific to political considerations concerning the siting decision and that in the south this would mean a discriminatory proliferation of dangerous waste management facilities in poor black and other minority communities. they also argued that the scientific consensus was that permanent containment could not be assured. as resistance to the siting of the pcb landfill in warren county continued and studies revealed that epa dry-tomb landfills were failing, epa stated in its federal register that all landfills would eventually leak and should only be used as a stopgap measure. years of research and empirical knowledge of the failures of the warren county pcb landfill led citizens of warren county to conclude that the epa's dry-tomb landfill design and regulations governing the disposal of toxic and hazardous waste were not based on sound science and adequate technology. warren county's citizens concluded also that north carolina's 1981 waste management act was scientifically and constitutionally unacceptable because it authorized the siting of toxic, hazardous, and nuclear waste facilities prior to public hearings, preempted local authority over the siting of the facilities, and authorized the use of force if needed. in the aftermath of the warren county protests, the 1984 federal hazardous and solid waste amendments to the resource conservation and recovery act focused on waste minimization and phasing out land disposal of hazardous waste as well as corrective action for releases of hazardous materials. other measures included in the 1984 amendments included increased enforcement authority for epa, more stringent hazardous waste management standards, and a comprehensive underground storage tank program. the disposal of toxic waste continues to be a source of conflict in the u.s. due to the hazards associated with toxic waste handling and disposal, communities often resist the siting of toxic waste landfills and other waste management facilities; however, determining where and how to dispose of waste is a necessary part of economic and environmental policy-making. the issue of handling toxic waste has become a global problem as international trade has arisen out of the increasing toxic byproducts produced with the transfer of them to less developed countries. in 1995, the united nations commission on human rights began to notice the illicit dumping of toxic waste and assigned a special rapporteur to examine the human rights aspect to this issue (commission resolution 1995/81). in september 2011, the human rights council decided to strengthen the mandate to include the entire life-cycle of hazardous products from manufacturing to the final destination (aka cradle to grave), as opposed to only movement and dumping of hazardous waste. the title of the special rapporteur has been changed to “special rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes."(human rights council 18/11). the human rights council has further extended the scope of its mandates as of september 2012 due to the result of the dangerous implications occurring to persons advocating environmentally sound practices regarding the generation, management, handling, distribution, and final disposal of hazardous and toxic materials to include the issue of the protection of the environmental human rights defenders. mapping of toxic waste in the united states toxmap was a geographic information system (gis) from the division of specialized information services of the united states national library of medicine (nlm) that used maps of the united states to help users visually explore data from the united states environmental protection agency's (epa) superfund and toxics release inventory programs. the chemical and environmental health information was taken from nlm's toxicology data network (toxnet) and pubmed, and from other authoritative sources. the database was removed from the internet by the trump administration in december 2019.