Environmental racism

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Environmental racism is racial discrimination in race-based differential enforcement of environmental rules and regulations; the intentional or unintentional targeting of minority communities for the siting of polluting industries such as toxic waste disposal; and the exclusion of people of color from public and private boards, commissions, and regulatory bodies.

1 Background
- 1.1 In the US
- 1.2 International
2 References
- 2.1 Other Sources
3 See also

[edit] Background

The environmental justice movement is the movement to reverse environmental racism. Organizations working for environmental justice include: Greenaction, Center for Health, Environment and Justice, The Coalition Against Environmental Racism. In response to public concerns raised by these groups, the EPA created the Office of Environmental Justice in 1992.

[edit] In the US

Studies have shown that not all individuals are equally exposed to pollution. For example, worldwide toxic-waste sites are more prevalent in poorer communities. In the United States the single most important factor in predicting the location of hazardous-waste sites is the ethnic composition of a neighborhood. Three of the five largest commercial hazardous-waste landfills in America are in predominantly black or Hispanic neighborhoods, and three out of every five black or Hispanic Americans live in the vicinity of an uncontrolled toxic-waste site. The wealth of a community is not nearly as good a predictor of hazardous-waste locations as the ethnic background of the residents, suggesting that the selection of sites for hazardous-waste disposal involves racism. James T. Hamilton studied the zip codes in the US targeted for capacity expansion in plans by commercial hazardous waste facilities from 1987 to 1992. Locations for hazardous waste facilities had an average nonwhite population of 25 percent, versus 18 percent for those areas without net expansion. Hamilton suggests that differences in the probability that residents will raise a firm's expected location costs by engaging in successful collective action to oppose expansion offer the best explanation for which neighborhoods are targeted by polluting industries.^[1] Another study in 1997 found that the communities most affected by hazardous waste treatment, storage, and disposal facilities in the Los Angeles area are working-class communities of color.^[2]

[edit] International

Environmental racism takes international forms as well. American corporations often continue to produce dangerous, U.S.-banned chemicals and ship them to developing countries. Additionally, the developed world has shipped large amounts of toxic waste to developing countries for less-than-safe disposal. For instance, experts estimate that 50 to 80 percent of electronic waste produced in the United States, including computer parts, is shipped to waste sites in developing countries, such as China and India. At a waste site in Giuyu, China, laborers with no protective clothing regularly burn plastics and circuit boards from old computers. They pour acid on electronic parts to extract silver and gold, and they smash cathode ray tubes from computer monitors to remove lead. These activities so pollute the groundwater beneath the site that drinking water is trucked in to the area from a town 29 km (18 mi) away.

[edit] References

^ Testing for Environmental Racism: Prejudice, Profits, Political Power James T. Hamilton Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter, 1995), pp. 107-132
^ Is there environmental racism ? The demographics of hazardous waste in Los Angeles County : Research on the environment

[edit] Other Sources

Bullard, Robert D. Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots. Boston: South End P, 1993.
Bullard, Robert D. Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice and Communities of Color. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1994.
Bullard, Robert D. and Beverly H. Wright. Environmentalism and the Politics of Equity: Emergent Trends in the Black Community. Mid-American Review of Sociology 12 (1987), 21-37.
Lavelle, Marriane and Marcia Coyle. “Critical Mass Builds on Environmental Equity.” The National Law Journal (1992, Sept. 21). Washington Briefs Sec., 5.
United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States. B. A. Goldman and L. Fitton Eds. NY: United Church of Christ, 1987.
U. S. General Accounting Office GAO. Siting of Hazardous Waste Landfills and Their Correlation with Racial and Economic Status of Surrounding Communities. Washington, D.C., 1983.