We live in a time when money rules all. If you can accumulate enough wealth, you are spuriously able to steal the un-ownable and dump your waste anywhere but outside your own door.
But where does it go? It sadly lands on the doorsteps of the deprived; deprived of privilege and the right to live in a healthy environment. Furthermore, these communities are subjected to ridicule via ignorance, for having to reside in these toxic environments.
The capitalist mentality to life on Earth is not only shameful and shambolic but is now dangerously tipping the balance of our entire planet.
It is not by accident that polluting industry, including landfills, incinerators and hazardous waste sites, are located in places where people do not have the resources or political clout to enforce NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard).
Pollution is impossible to avoid. From the landfill in your back yard, to the smoking chimneys, constant city noise, light pollution, pesticides lacing affordable foods, unnecessary chemicals in the drinking water, toxic hygiene products, and plastic waste and other garbage refuse actively shipped to poorer countries; which Britain, post-Brexit, is notoriously bad for.
The UK is also exporting waste to countries with known bad marine pollution records. A petition directed at the UK Government’s Environmental Food and Rural Affairs department, is challenging the mass export of UK plastic waste to poorer countries. The government must make the necessary changes to reduce the source of this particular waste, and not push it elsewhere to other disadvantaged nations who are already suffering from the numerous effects of climate change.
For many, high housing costs result in low-income and minority neighbourhoods being clustered around industrial sites, lorry routes, ports and other air pollution hotspots. Worryingly, it is children and teenagers who are more likely to breath these pollutants. Certain cancers, neurological and other chronic diseases have been found to be significantly higher in minority communities and in socioeconomically depressed areas.
It is not simple to make direct connections between health and pollutants, as each person responds uniquely to them. The way our bodies react to pollutants also changes as we develop with age; for example, young children are at higher risk to neurotoxins, which can adversely affect function in both developing and mature nervous tissue. It can also be difficult to establish whether the cause of disease is due to other consequences of low SES (socioeconomic status).
Despite the difficulties in ascertaining exactly what impacts pollution has on health, it is still easy to see a trend of “dump it on those less equipped to stop it”.
Walley's Quarry Landfill in Newcastle-under-Lyme is an ideal example of this. Local residents cannot open windows to cool off or refresh the air in their homes. They cannot put their washing out to dry, forcing more use of heating and dryers, which can lead to damp homes and high energy bills. A therapeutic walk with the family dog is no longer possible. Even the resident pets are enduring anxiety, induced from loud bangs intended to scare away the gulls that are trying to survive on the landfill.
This is only the tip of the garbage-berg for local residents and already it is easy to understand the negative impacts on general and mental health and well-being. The planning permission should not have allowed a landfill and a residential area to be situated so close together.
Landfills have noted negative impacts on air quality, biggest contributors to soil pollution, biodiversity, groundwater, aesthetics and health, furthermore a large proportion of the items buried in them could be recycled. If they are not managed or risk-assessed properly, these impacts can be devastating to the local environment. Many things need to be considered for each impact, explained here with the government's advice on landfill leachate management.
There have been numerous studies conducted to establish whether there is a connection between birth defects and living in close proximity to a landfill site. Some studies found a connection, whereas others indicated no link established. It is difficult to interpret the results due to variabilities in study parameters, and inability to exclude other factors.
The 2011 The Health Protection Agency report details the many impacts of landfill-emissions on community health, including summaries of studies conducted on birth defects. However, it is clear to see that further analyses are both required and necessary to get to the bottom of this.
Sadly, most people cannot afford the expensive equipment required to offset the negative effects of our polluting society such as air-conditioning, noise control systems, respite breaks and private hospital care. There is something very wrong when the only people who can afford to take care of themselves against pollution, are the same people who live the furthest from it.
Sometimes even policies intended to spur development and attract businesses to run-down areas of cities, such as SEZ's (Special Economic Zones), can have dire consequences. These plans openly invite polluting industries, they also put extra pressure on already deteriorated natural resources. SEZ's give natural resources to businesses at a low cost, but simultaneously at high costs to the locals; including the likely degradation of the local environment as well as their health.
These are mass global problems.
The environmental justice movement was emerging in the early 1980's, due in part to a dispute over toxic waste dumping near a neighbourhood of African-American communities in North Carolina, USA. The movement emphasized a need to unveil the practices which perpetuate social injustice. In this case, a major factor was that no economic value was given to environmental resources such as soil, air, and water; hence no costs were designated for their impairment or degradation. This led to an endemic of pollution for the local people.
Native American tribal land also bears the brunt of coal, uranium, crude oil and natural gas extraction, and their associated risks; which affects more than most of the North American population.
‘Environmental justice communities' have two characteristics:
1. They have experienced historical (usually multi-generational) exposures to disproportionately high doses of potentially harmful substances (the environmental part).
2.They have certain specified socioeconomic and demographic characteristics, including a low SES, racial, ethnic, and are historically disadvantaged (the justice part).'
The environmental justice movement is global, and is evolving with changes in society and perspective. There have been successes and developments; even before the movement began, as early as the year 1610 with Aldred’s Case, which can be seen as the birth of the ordinary-man having a cause of environmental law against his immediate neighbour, and confirmed a legal right to reduce extreme noise and smell. To more modern and grand scales, such as the Paris court having convicted the French government of not upholding its commitments stemming from the Paris climate accord.
Yet there are many failures, such as when Friends of the Irish Environment sought to revoke a plan that failed to provide for adequate emission reduction targets. IUU (Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated) fishing, which massively compounds the global over-fishing problem, is enabled by an endemic lack of transparency in the fisheries sector, and the FOCs (Flags of Convenience) system which is at the heart of this opaque problem, allowing ‘’business as usual’’ for IUU fishing.
The UK has credible evidence of environmental inequality, but no comparable response has been made. Environmental justice in the UK is a messy problem and progress has been slower than hoped, due to changing political priorities, stakeholder conflicts, and the absence of clear leadership.
On top of this, in a variety of ways over the last few years, the Government had deliberately set out to undermine the public's expectations for environmental justice. They sought to apply policy in a more dictatorial manner - reducing consultation, while at the same time making it much harder to challenge bad decisions via the courts and had removed legal aid to support many people's access to justice.
If a community group is thinking of embarking on a legal course, it must ask “Will a lawsuit help or hinder the communities struggle?” Environmental justice struggles are based in the political and economic realms, not legal, and this can be a tactical drawback even leading to disempowerment of the community.
It is good to know that there are organisations that can help, such as LDF, who have litigated several environmental justice cases. Also, the Global Environmental Justice Research Group who have an interdisciplinary assembly of scholars from the University of East Anglia interested in the links between social justice and environmental change at both local and global scales.
It is maddening that as well as environmental injustice, there is a global trend of locating residential areas in devastation zones. Floodplains are a well-known example in the UK. Globally, this happens in areas such as active volcanos, known hurricane paths, earthquake zones and landslide-prone areas. The problem is that residents with low SES cannot afford mitigation against the risks associated with these dangers, again leaving their health and livelihoods to suffer. We are already seeing a new influx climate-change refugees.
The UK requires changes in national political outlook and policies. Short-sighted and inconsiderate practices in government bow down to capitalism, allowing inequality to reign.
Influence over our environment needs to be redistributed to include all socioeconomic backgrounds, giving everybody a real say in what happens. Giving our children hope of a better future, and adults a sense of control and belonging.
The established way must change, and this change must initiate from the top. Better systems must be enforced to protect the socioeconomic failings, and environmental responsibilities must be acknowledged.
We too must be part of this change, for ourselves, our children, our neighbours and our wider communities. We must make better choices and take positive action. Doing this together, and for each other, will yield joy and success which we all need in the struggle against pollution and inequality.
Next time an opportunity arrives to make a better choice, please think of the ramifications of inaction, and remember it’s ourselves we’re hurting.
Ease lockdown boredom for all the family with these recycling facts and activities:
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· Waste pollution information.
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· Twenty facts about waste and recycling.