340
Opinion of the Court
of interstate trade.3 Today, in Fort Gratiot Sanitary Land-fill, Inc. v. Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources, post, p. 353, we have also considered a Commerce Clause challenge to a Michigan law prohibiting private landfill operators from accepting solid waste originating outside the county in which their facilities operate. In striking down that law, we adhered to our decision in Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617 (1978), where we found New Jersey's prohibition of solid waste from outside that State to amount to economic protectionism barred by the Commerce Clause:
" '[T]he evil of protectionism can reside in legislative means as well as legislative ends. Thus, it does not matter whether the ultimate aim of ch. 363 is to reduce the waste disposal costs of New Jersey residents or to save remaining open lands from pollution, for we assume New Jersey has every right to protect its residents'
3 The Alabama Supreme Court assumed that the disposal of hazardous waste constituted an article of commerce, and the State does not explicitly argue here to the contrary. In Fort Gratiot Sanitary Landfill, Inc. v. Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources, post, at 359, we have reaffirmed the idea that "[s]olid waste, even if it has no value, is an article of commerce." As stated in Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U. S. 617, 622-623 (1978): "All objects of interstate trade merit Commerce Clause protection; none is excluded by definition at the outset. . . . Just as Congress has power to regulate the interstate movement of these wastes, States are not free from constitutional scrutiny when they restrict that movement." The definition of "hazardous waste" makes clear that it is simply a grade of solid waste, albeit one of particularly noxious and dangerous propensities, see n. 1, supra, but whether the business arrangements between outof-state generators of hazardous waste and the Alabama operator of a hazardous waste landfill are viewed as "sales" of hazardous waste or "purchases" of transportation and disposal services, "the commercial transactions unquestionably have an interstate character. The Commerce Clause thus imposes some constraints on [Alabama's] ability to regulate these transactions." Fort Gratiot Sanitary Landfill, post, at 359. See National Solid Wastes Management Assn. v. Alabama Dept. of Environmental Mgmt., 910 F. 2d 713, 718-719 (CA11 1990), modified, 924 F. 2d 1001, cert. denied, 501 U. S. 1206 (1991).
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