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EspañolVictories for Clean Air
Everyone should be able to breathe clean air, but disadvantaged communities around the world are choking on toxic chemicals and particulates released by waste incinerators and polluting factories. E-LAW U.S. is helping communities challenge polluters, promote environmentally sound alternatives, and win clean air. The E-LAW network helped win the following victories for clean air:
Jamaican school children (PHOTO: Jamaica Environment Trust)
Waste Incinerators: A Bad Choice
Incinerating waste exposes people to dangerous environmental toxins, including mercury and dioxin. In the U.S. we are moving away from waste incineration. Outside the U.S., companies are still proposing to construct new waste incinerators. E-LAW U.S. is helping grassroots advocates around the world challenge proposed incinerators and protect clean air.
"The good news is that science and law are evolving in tandem to persuade societies to adopt environmentally sound alternatives to waste incineration," says Mark Chernaik, E-LAW U.S. Staff Scientist.
Scientists are educating decisionmakers about the amounts of environmental toxins that waste incinerators generate and how these toxins impact public health and wildlife. Lawmakers are beginning to protect communities from the burning of wastes, including requiring that proponents of waste incinerators properly assess their impacts, consider alternatives, and comply with strict environmental standards. In addition, socially responsible companies are developing affordable and efficient technologies to treat and dispose of wastes that do not involve burning.
E-LAW U.S. has been leading efforts to help public interest lawyers around the world challenge incinerators and promote environmentally friendly alternatives. The following are a few examples:
- E-LAW U.S. helped advocates in the Philippines convince their Congress to enact the Philippines Clean Air Act, which phases out waste incineration.
- E-LAW U.S. drafted a comprehensive, model medical waste management law that has been used by Ministries in South Africa and Pakistan to develop new laws.
- E-LAW U.S. helped advocates at the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET) win clean air for residents in Kingston. A local hospital proposed a medical waste incinerator on hospital grounds, near a Kingston residential area. At JET`s request, E-LAW U.S. critiqued plans for the incinerator and gave JET information about alternative and affordable medical waste management practices that safeguard public health. As a result, the hospital scrapped plans for the incinerator and moved ahead on efforts to steam sterilize its medical waste.
Diana McCaulay, JET`s Executive Director, said: "I feel very encouraged ... victories are very hard to find here in Jamaica. I intend now to see what I can do to get government policy changed, so that all hospitals will begin to change their waste management practices."
- E-LAW U.S. has helped partners at the Legal Resources Centre (LRC) in South Africa win many victories for clean air. Low-income families living in townships near Durban, Johannesburg, and Cape Town all received the support they needed to protect their neighborhoods from proposed toxic waste incinerators.
South Africa`s apartheid regime relocated millions of black South Africans to townships between 1976 and 1981. Today, residents there struggle to make ends meet. Companies often propose incinerator projects for township neighborhoods.
In Shongweni, outside Durban, a company cancelled plans for two medical waste incinerators and will instead build a steam sterilization unit. LRC called on E-LAW U.S. Staff Scientist Mark Chernaik to evaluate the project`s environmental impact assessment (EIA).
Mark said: "The company’s justification for building an incinerator to treat medical waste could be likened to using a gun to kill a mosquito!"
Adrian Pole, an environmental attorney working with LRC, wrote: "Many thanks to E-LAW for providing us with an expert report on the proposal. This report served us well to inform the public at community meetings, and was also very effective in support of LRC`s legal submissions on behalf of Earthlife Africa."
In Sasolburg, a community south of Johannesburg that struggles with 50% unemployment, authorities rejected a company`s plans to incinerate up to one million metric tons of liquid hazardous waste per year – more than half of the hazardous waste incinerated all year in the U.S.! Mark provided LRC with U.S. EPA studies on the amounts of dioxins that incinerators emit and the costs of adequately controlling toxic pollutant emissions.
In the Khayelitsha and Mitchells Plain townships, outside Cape Town, authorities rejected an international weapons manufacturer`s proposed incinerator. Mark provided LRC with critical support documenting the public health impacts of incinerating metals and identified experts to assess alternative waste disposal options.
Angela Andrews, LRC Staff Attorney, recently wrote to Mark: "Together we are making it a cleaner world."
Clean Air for Chemor, Malaysia
As reported last year, a community in Malaysia suffered for years from toxic emissions released by a latex processing plant. E-LAW U.S. worked with the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) to provide the scientific information the community needed to convince the company to re-locate.
E-LAW U.S. recently received the following thank you note from Chai Sin Chong, Chairman of the Kuala Kuang Anti-Stench Committee:
Chemor residents celebrate with attorneys from the Consumers Association of Penang.
On behalf of the residents in Kuala Kuang, Chemor, I would like to thank your organisation for all the assistance that you have provided to help us with our struggle to put a stop to the factory’s operations in our area. It would have been impossible to make the factory operator enter into a settlement agreement without the scientific evidence as well as the hand-held equipment to measure the emissions which we submitted through our case in court.
Chai Sin Chong
Kuala Kuang Anti-Stench Committee
Chemor, Malaysia
E-LAW U.S. provided CAP with critical scientific resources, including a hand-held gas monitor, to measure ambient air levels of hydrogen sulfide near the factory. CAP revealed that families in Chemor were breathing levels of hydrogen sulfide 160 times higher than the standard permitted in the state of California!
Support from the Alice C. Tyler Perpetual Trust made it possible for E-LAW U.S. to purchase the hand-held hydrogen gas monitor and provide it to the community in Chemor.
Your Right to Live Free of Pollution: Holding Industries Accountable in Russia
In June, the European Court of Human Rights issued a unanimous landmark ruling awarding compensation to a 56-year old mother of three who suffers serious health problems from exposure to toxic emissions from Russia’s largest steel manufacturing plant.
Nadezhda Fadeyeva lives in a government-owned apartment in Cherepovets, an industrial center 200 miles northeast of Moscow. E-LAW U.S. Staff Scientist Mark Chernaik assessed the risk of exposure to pollutants near Fadeyeva`s home, and found that people living near the steelworks would suffer from more disease.
"I can hardly think of a more powerful case for the importance of E-LAW. The case has the potential to fundamentally shift thinking in Europe on the connection between human rights and the environment."
Phil Michaels, Friends of the Earth, U.K.
Lawyer Philip Leach, who argued the case, wrote: "The judgment means that the Government of Russia must either stop the pollution or move Mrs. Fadeyeva. If they move her, there would be nothing to stop the thousands of other people in her position from bringing similar cases."
This case may make it easier for pollution victims to challenge polluters and obtain remedies. Future victims will need to show only that they were exposed to pollutant levels exceeding health-based standards and that their illnesses are associated with exposure to those pollutants. This decision could improve the lives of thousands in Russia who suffer from pollution-related illnesses.
