Toxic Waste in the Waters of New York and New Jersey

The widely used term toxic waste is difficult to define, it includes mostly man-made substances harmful to life and the environment. These substances would include, wastes with any of the following characteristics: poisonous, explosive, radioactive, corrosive, flammable, carcinogenic (causing cancer), mutagenic (damaging chromosomes), teratogenic (causing defects in the unborn) or bioaccumulative (accumulating in the bodies of plants and animals and thus in food chains) (Enviro Facts - Toxic Waste - , 2002). Earth contains two major masses on the surface, land and water. …