3 ms·

From the first link, it seems like the slightly to moderately higher cancer risks (correlational) of living near a dump are due to socio-economic factors (smoki

by wisty 3y ago

From the first link, it seems like the slightly to moderately higher cancer risks (correlational) of living near a dump are due to socio-economic factors (smoking). Quotes: A proximity analysis, which modeled how many cancer cases could be explained by distance to Fresh Kills, found that none of the five cancer types had elevated rates closer to Fresh Kills between 1995 and 2004, although it did find that some thyroid and bladder cancer rates were higher near the former landfill site between 2005 and 2015. But the researchers still saw little evidence of a link to the landfill because they could not find any reasonable explanations for how residents would have come into contact with materials in the landfill that were known or suspected to cause bladder or thyroid cancers, especially since Fresh Kills closed. “More plausible” explanations, the authors wrote, were higher screening rates for thyroid cancer and Staten Islanders’ higher smoking rates. Smoking is a known risk factor for bladder cancer.

autoexec 3y ago
The link between landfills and cancers is kind of iffy. Some research shows higher rates of cancers, others don't. My guess is that it depends a lot on what's been buried and how. What seems more certain is that you can run into other health problems like heart/respiratory issues and then there's the stench which I wouldn't want to live near even if there were no health issues.
- simoncion 3y ago
  > ...and then there's the stench which I wouldn't want to live near... For active landfills, yeah. For decommissioned and capped-off landfills, nah, not if they've done it right. (And given that this is a regulated industry, it's very likely that they've done it right.) In my experience in the American Southeast, Academy of Model Aeronautics airfields are often built on top of decommissioned landfills [0]... so I have spent a lot of time standing on and around these things. I've never noticed any odor, soft spots in the terrain [1] that is the cap, or any of most of the other weird things one might think of when one thinks "site of a former landfill". [0] Why? Because the land is quite cheap, and a ~100 foot strip of tarmac, a few little structures (sun shelters and the like) and parking for a couple dozen cars isn't all that much weight. [1] To be fair, the runway did have to be worked on every three, five years as the terrain under it settled. But bear in mind that we're talking about bumps in a runway for model aircraft, so the amount of settling was actually not very large.

by wisty 3y ago

autoexec 3y ago

The link between landfills and cancers is kind of iffy. Some research shows higher rates of cancers, others don't. My guess is that it depends a lot on what's been buried and how. What seems more certain is that you can run into other health problems like heart/respiratory issues and then there's the stench which I wouldn't want to live near even if there were no health issues.

simoncion 3y ago
> ...and then there's the stench which I wouldn't want to live near... For active landfills, yeah. For decommissioned and capped-off landfills, nah, not if they've done it right. (And given that this is a regulated industry, it's very likely that they've done it right.) In my experience in the American Southeast, Academy of Model Aeronautics airfields are often built on top of decommissioned landfills [0]... so I have spent a lot of time standing on and around these things. I've never noticed any odor, soft spots in the terrain [1] that is the cap, or any of most of the other weird things one might think of when one thinks "site of a former landfill". [0] Why? Because the land is quite cheap, and a ~100 foot strip of tarmac, a few little structures (sun shelters and the like) and parking for a couple dozen cars isn't all that much weight. [1] To be fair, the runway did have to be worked on every three, five years as the terrain under it settled. But bear in mind that we're talking about bumps in a runway for model aircraft, so the amount of settling was actually not very large.