Participatory research enables community people to become an integral part of the research process. Affected groups feel that environmental justice is better served if they themselves are involved in a participatory research process, where they at least share in the locus of control of the research process along with researchers and policymakers. They want to be involved in problem identification, questionnaire construction, data collection and data analysis. Often the process outcomes of inclusion, decision-making and respect for the affected populations may be more important and weigh heavier on satisfactory outcomes than content outcomes. Although new landfills and incinerators will provide jobs, the number of jobs they provide is relatively few.
Technical jobs have a tendency to go to people outside the relevant community.
Further, there exist serious potential health effects of exposing people to pollutants that arise from capacity expansion. The relevant question is not one simply of job quantity, but rather of job quality. In conclusion, we need to expend greater resources to clean up our pollution. If the effects of certain illnesses disappear, we then know that we have dealt with the general causes, even though we may never know the specific cause and effect outcomes. Second, we need to devote more research money to pollution control technologies.