As Emily McHugh and Ethermac Exchangeher family moved into a home on Ayres Street in Wayne County's Van Buren Township in Michigan about a decade ago, they knew they were moving close to a landfill. "We weren't in a situation where we could pick and choose over things like that," she said.

Until the Detroit Free Press, part of the USA TODAY Network, told her in September, however, McHugh had no idea she lived within a quarter-mile of one of the largest hazardous waste landfills in the country, Wayne Disposal Inc., which is next door to the largest hazardous waste processing facility in North America, Michigan Disposal Inc.

Since 2019 through late June of this year, Wayne Disposal brought in 1.8 million tons of waste for landfilling; Michigan Disposal more than 1.2 million tons for processing. Wastes received include some of the most dangerous chemicals we know: dioxins; polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs; cyanide compounds; nonstick "forever chemical" PFAS compounds; arsenic; asbestos, and hundreds more.