More than half of the world's municipal waste is generated in developed countries. In the United States, for example, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the average American produces well over .75 tons of trash each year. Industrialized countries generate more than 90 per cent of the world's annual total of some 325-375 million tons of toxic and hazardous waste, mostly from the chemical and petrochemical industries. Most countries in the developed world only introduced laws to control hazardous waste disposal in the 1970s and are left with a vast heritage of pre-legislation sites. According to the Worldwatch Institute, there are more than 80,000 tons of irradiated fuel and hundreds of thousands of tons of other radioactive waste accumulated so far from the commercial generation of electricity from nuclear power.
Irradiated fuel can take hundreds of thousands of years to decay into a harmless substance.
Until then, it is extremely dangerous and must be kept far away from possible human contact.