Is there any disadvantages in disposing the hazardous waste through deep well injection?
By far, the majority of all hazardous waste that is disposed is done so by deep-well injection. According to the hazardous waste report (using data from 2007), 43% of waste was injected. Data from 2005 indicated that almost 50% was disposed by deep well injection. Oddly, both those data sets showed that 3% of the hazardous waste facilities conducted deep well injection. Disadvantages? Hard to say. The wells used are strictly regulated, such that the wells must drilled so as to not impact underground sources of drinking water – the wells must have their active zones (screens) well below any known underground sources of drinking water (USDWs). Usually, one would expect to have several confining strata between the bottom-most known USDW and the injection zone of the well.
