Tools for risk assessment on the environment and human health for the final disposal of municipal solid waste

In the field of environmental protection and public health, it is necessary to control, to the extent possible, emission sources of environmental pollutants and their impact. To this purpose it is essential to carry out multidisciplinary research to support the development of public policies evidence-based, aimed at social benefit and whose associated economic cost can be measured. Risk assessment (RA) is a tool that, applied to the handling of municipal solid waste (MSW) and the operation of waste disposal sites (WDS) sector, can help to quantitatively estimate and prioritize the risk caused by such sites. The information that a RA provides will support the development of risk prevention normative measures, as well as in decision on environmental control through the delivery of the best scientific information available to regulatory agencies and government agencies. The RA studies by the operation of WDS valuables for epidemiological research should include: the people occupationally exposed as the first to be in contact with the contaminants for the identification of complete exposure pathways, the estimation and measurement of actual exposure to contaminants or, the exposure modeling on basis of existing data, supported by a multidisciplinary team of experts in these sectors. This paper exposes the key points for conducting any RA study of WDS on the environment and human health, as well as some existing computational tools that could help to complete the task.