Environmental justice emerged as a concept in the United
States in the early 1980s. The term has two distinct uses with the more
common usage describing a social movement
that focuses on the fair distribution of environmental benefits and
burdens. The other use is an interdisciplinary body of social science
literature that includes theories of the environment and justice,
environmental laws and their implementations, environmental policy and
planning and governance for development and sustainability, and
political ecology.
Definition
The United States Environmental Protection Agency defines environmental justice as follows:
Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. EPA has this goal for all communities and persons across this Nation [sic]. It will be achieved when everyone enjoys the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the decision-making process to have a healthy environment in which to live, learn, and work.
Other definitions include: equitable distribution of environmental
risks and benefits; fair and meaningful participation in environmental
decision-making; recognition of community ways of life, local knowledge,
and cultural difference; and the capability of communities and
individuals to function and flourish in society. An alternative meaning, used in social sciences, of the term "justice" is "the distribution of social goods".
Environmental discrimination
Environmental discrimination is one issue that environmental justice seeks to address. Racism and discrimination
against minorities center on a socially-dominant group's belief in its
superiority, often resulting in privilege for the dominant group and the
mistreatment of non-dominant minorities.
The combined impact of these privileges and prejudices are just one of
the potential reasons that waste management and high pollution sites
tend to be located in minority-dominated areas. A disproportionate
quantity of minority communities (for example in Warren County, North Carolina) play host to landfills, incinerators, and other potentially toxic facilities.
Environmental discrimination can also be the placement of a harmful
factory in a place of minority. This can be seen as environmental
discrimination because it is placing a harmful entity in a place where
the people often don't have the means to fight back against big
corporations.
Environmental discrimination has historically been evident in the
process of selecting and building environmentally hazardous sites,
including waste disposal, manufacturing,
and energy production facilities. The location of transportation
infrastructures, including highways, ports, and airports, has also been
viewed as a source of environmental injustice. Among the earliest
documentation of environmental racism was a study of the distribution of
toxic waste sites across the United States.
Due to the results of that study, waste dumps and waste incinerators
have been the target of environmental justice lawsuits and protests.
Litigation
Some environmental justice lawsuits are based on violations of civil rights laws.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
is often used in lawsuits that claim environmental inequality. Section
601 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin by
any government agency receiving federal assistance. To win an
environmental justice case that claims an agency violated this statute,
the plaintiff must prove the agency intended to discriminate. Section
602 requires agencies to create rules and regulations that uphold
section 601. This section is useful because the plaintiff must only
prove that the rule or regulation in question had a discriminatory
impact. There is no need to prove discriminatory intent. Seif v. Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living
set the precedent that citizens can sue under section 601. There has
not yet been a case in which a citizen has sued under section 602, which
calls into question whether this right of action exists.
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,
which was used many times to defend minority rights during the 1960s,
has also been used in numerous environmental justice cases.
Initial barriers to minority participation
When environmentalism
first became popular during the early 20th century, the focus was
wilderness protection and wildlife preservation. These goals reflected
the interests of the movement's initial supporters. The actions of many
mainstream environmental organizations still reflect these early
principles.
Numerous low-income minorities felt isolated or negatively
impacted by the movement, exemplified by the Southwest Organizing
Project's (SWOP) Letter to the Group of 10, a letter sent to major
environmental organizations by several local environmental justice
activists.
The letter argued that the environmental movement was so concerned
about cleaning up and preserving nature that it ignored the negative
side-effects that doing so caused communities nearby, namely less job
growth. In addition, the NIMBY movement has transferred locally unwanted land uses
(LULUs) from middle-class neighborhoods to poor communities with large
minority populations. Therefore, vulnerable communities with fewer
political opportunities are more often exposed to hazardous waste and
toxins. This has resulted in the PIBBY principle, or at least the PIMBY (Place-in-minorities'-backyard), as supported by the United Church of Christ's study in 1987.
As a result, some minorities have viewed the environmental movement as
elitist. Environmental elitism manifested itself in three different
forms:
- Compositional – Environmentalists are from the middle and upper class.
- Ideological – The reforms benefit the movement's supporters but impose costs on nonparticipants.
- Impact – The reforms have "regressive social impacts". They disproportionately benefit environmentalists and harm underrepresented populations.
Supporters of economic growth have taken advantage of
environmentalists' neglect of minorities. They have convinced minority
leaders looking to improve their communities that the economic benefits
of industrial facility and the increase in the number of jobs are worth
the health risks. In fact, both politicians and businesses have even
threatened imminent job loss if communities do not accept hazardous
industries and facilities. Although in many cases local residents do not
actually receive these benefits, the argument is used to decrease
resistance in the communities as well as avoid expenditures used to
clean up pollutants and create safer workplace environments.
Cost barriers
One of the prominent barriers to minority participation in
environmental justice is the initial costs of trying to change the
system and prevent companies from dumping their toxic waste and other
pollutants in areas with high numbers of minorities living in them.
There are massive legal fees involved in fighting for environmental
justice and trying to shed environmental racism. For example, in the
United Kingdom, there is a rule that the claimant may have to cover the
fees of their opponents, which further exacerbates any cost issues,
especially with lower income minority groups; also, the only way for
environmental justice groups to hold companies accountable for their
pollution and breaking any licensing issues over waste disposal would be
to sue the government for not enforcing rules. This would lead to the
forbidding legal fees that most could not afford. This can be seen by the fact that out of 210 judicial review cases between 2005 and 2009, 56% did not proceed due to costs.
Contributions of the Civil Rights Movement
During the Civil Rights Movement
in the 1960s, activists participated in a social movement that created a
unified atmosphere and advocated goals of social justice and equality.
The community organization and the social values of the era have
translated to the Environmental Justice movement.
Similar goals and tactics
The
Environmental Justice movement and the Civil Rights Movement have many
commonalities. At their core, the movements' goals are the same: "social
justice, equal protection, and an end to institutional discrimination."
By stressing the similarities of the two movements, it emphasizes that
environmental equity is a right for all citizens. Because the two
movements have parallel goals, it is useful to employ similar tactics
that often emerge on the grassroots level. Common confrontational
strategies include protests, neighborhood demonstrations, picketing,
political pressure, and demonstration.
Existing organizations and leaders
Just
as the civil rights movement of the 1960s began in the South, the fight
for environmental equity has been largely based in the South, where
environmental discrimination is most prominent. In these southern
communities, black churches and other voluntary associations are used to
organize resistance efforts, including research and demonstrations,
such as the protest in Warren County, North Carolina. As a result of the
existing community structure, many church leaders and civil rights
activists, such as Reverend Benjamin Chavis Muhammad, have spearheaded the Environmental Justice movement.
The Bronx, in New York City, has become a recent example of Environmental Justice succeeding. Majora Carter spearheaded the South Bronx Greenway Project, bringing local economic development, local urban heat island mitigation, positive social influences, access to public open space, and aesthetically stimulating environments. The New York City Department of Design and Construction
has recently recognized the value of the South Bronx Greenway design,
and consequently utilized it as a widely distributed smart growth
template. This venture is the ideal shovel-ready project with over $50 million in funding.
Litigation
Several
of the most successful Environmental Justice lawsuits are based on
violations of civil rights laws. The first case to use civil rights as a
means to legally challenge the siting of a waste facility was in 1979.
With the legal representation of Linda McKeever Bullard, the wife of
Robert D. Bullard, residents of Houston's Northwood Manor opposed the
decision of the city and Browning Ferris Industries to construct a solid
waste facility near their mostly African-American neighborhood.
In 1979, Northeast Community Action Group, or NECAG, was formed
by African American homeowners in a suburban, middle income neighborhood
in order to keep a landfill out of their home town. This group was the
first organization that found the connection between race and pollution.
The group, alongside their attorney Linda McKeever Bullard started the
lawsuit Bean v. Southwestern Waste Management, Inc., which was the first
of its kind to challenge the sitting of a waste facility under civil
rights law.
The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,
which was used many times to defend minority rights during the 1960s,
has also been used in numerous Environmental Justice cases.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
is often used in lawsuits that claim environmental inequality. The two
most paramount sections in these cases are sections 601 and 602. Section
601 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin
by any government agency receiving federal assistance. To win an
Environmental Justice case that claims an agency violated this statute,
the plaintiff must prove the agency intended to discriminate. Section
602 requires agencies to create rules and regulations that uphold
section 601; in Alexander v. Sandoval,
the Supreme Court held that plaintiffs must also show intent to
discriminate to successfully challenge the government under 602.
Affected groups
Among
the affected groups of Environmental Justice, those in high-poverty and
racial minority groups have the most propensity to receive the harm of
environmental injustice. Poor people account for more than 20% of the
human health impacts from industrial toxic air releases, compared to
12.9% of the population nationwide.
This does not account for the inequity found among individual minority
groups. Some studies that test statistically for effects of race and
ethnicity, while controlling for income and other factors, suggest
racial gaps in exposure that persist across all bands of income.
African-Americans are affected by a variety of Environmental Justice issues. One notorious example is the "Cancer Alley"
region of Louisiana. This 85-mile stretch of the Mississippi River
between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is home to 125 companies that
produce one quarter of the petrochemical products manufactured in the
United States. The United States Commission on Civil Rights
has concluded that the African-American community has been
disproportionately affected by Cancer Alley as a result of Louisiana's
current state and local permit system for hazardous facilities, as well
as their low socio-economic status and limited political influence.
Another incidence of long-term environmental injustice occurred in the
"West Grove" community of Miami, Florida. From 1925 to 1970, the
predominately poor, African American residents of the "West Grove"
endured the negative effects of exposure to carcinogenic emissions and
toxic waste discharge from a large trash incinerator called Old Smokey.
Despite official acknowledgement as a public nuisance, the incinerator
project was expanded in 1961. It was not until the surrounding,
predominantly white neighborhoods began to experience the negative
impacts from Old Smokey that the legal battle began to close the
incinerator.
Indigenous groups are often the victims of environmental injustices. Native Americans have suffered abuses related to uranium mining
in the American West. Churchrock, New Mexico, in Navajo territory was
home to the longest continuous uranium mining in any Navajo land. From
1954 until 1968, the tribe leased land to mining companies who did not
obtain consent from Navajo families or report any consequences of their
activities. Not only did the miners significantly deplete the limited
water supply, but they also contaminated what was left of the Navajo
water supply with uranium. Kerr-McGee and United Nuclear Corporation,
the two largest mining companies, argued that the Federal Water
Pollution Control Act did not apply to them, and maintained that Native
American land is not subject to environmental protections. The courts
did not force them to comply with US clean water regulations until 1980.
The most common example of environmental injustice among Latinos
is the exposure to pesticides faced by farmworkers. After DDT and other
chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides were banned in the United States in
1972, farmers began using more acutely toxic organophosphate pesticides
such as parathion.
A large portion of farmworkers in the US are working as undocumented
immigrants, and as a result of their political disadvantage, are not
able to protest against regular exposure to pesticides or benefit from
the protections of Federal laws.
Exposure to chemical pesticides in the cotton industry also affects
farmers in India and Uzbekistan. Banned throughout much of the rest of
the world because of the potential threat to human health and the
natural environment, Endosulfan is a highly toxic chemical, the safe use of which cannot be guaranteed in the many developing countries it is used in. Endosulfan,
like DDT, is an organochlorine and persists in the environment long
after it has killed the target pests, leaving a deadly legacy for people
and wildlife.
Residents of cities along the US-Mexico border are also affected. Maquiladoras
are assembly plants operated by American, Japanese, and other foreign
countries, located along the US-Mexico border. The maquiladoras use
cheap Mexican labor to assemble imported components and raw material,
and then transport finished products back to the United States. Much of
the waste ends up being illegally dumped in sewers, ditches, or in the
desert. Along the Lower Rio Grande Valley,
maquiladoras dump their toxic wastes into the river from which 95
percent of residents obtain their drinking water. In the border cities
of Brownsville, Texas and Matamoros, Mexico, the rate of anencephaly (babies born without brains) is four times the national average.
States may also see placing toxic facilities near poor
neighborhoods as preferential from a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA)
perspective. A CBA may favor placing a toxic facility near a city of
20,000 poor people than near a city of 5,000 wealthy people. Terry Bossert of Range Resources
reportedly has said that it deliberately locates its operations in poor
neighbourhoods instead of wealthy areas where residents have more money
to challenge its practices. Northern California's East Bay Refinery Corridor is an example of the disparities associated with race and income and proximity to toxic facilities.
It has been argued that environmental justice issues generally
tend to affect women in communities more so than they affect men. This
is due to the way that women typically interact more closely with their
environments at home, such as through handling food preparation and
childcare. Women also tend to be the leaders in environmental justice
activist movements. Despite this, it tends not to be considered a
mainstream feminist issue.
Government agencies
U.S. Department of Agriculture
In its 2012 environmental justice strategy documents, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) stated an ongoing desire to integrate environmental justice into
its core mission, internal operations and programming. It identified
ambitious time frames for action and promised improved efforts to
highlight, track and coordinate EJ activities among its many
sub-agencies. Agency-wide the USDA expanded its perspective on EJ, so
that in addition to preventing disproportionate environmental impacts on
EJ communities, USDA voiced a commitment to improve public
participation processes and use its technical and financial assistance
programs to improve the quality of life in all communities. In 2011,
Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack emphasized the USDA's focus on EJ
in rural communities around the United States. USDA funds or implements
many creative programs with social and environmental equity goals,
however it has no staff dedicated solely to EJ, and faces the challenges
of limited budgets and coordinating the efforts of a highly diverse
agency.
Background
The USDA is the executive agency responsible for federal policy on food, agriculture, natural resources, and quality of life in rural America. The USDA has more than 100,000 employees and delivers over $96.5 billion in public services to programs worldwide.
To fulfill its general mandate, USDA's departments are organized into
seven mission areas:1) Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services; 2) Food,
Nutrition and Consumer Services; 3) Food Safety; 4) Marketing and
Regulatory Programs; 5) Natural Resources and Environment; 6) Research,
Education and Economics and; 7) Rural Development.
In 1994, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12898, "Federal
Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and
Low-Income Populations." Executive Order 12898 requires that achieving
EJ must be part of each federal agency's mission. Agency programs,
policies and activities can lead to health and environmental effects
that disproportionately impact minority and low-income populations.
Under Executive Order 12898 agencies must develop strategies that
identify and address these effects by:
- promoting enforcement of all health and environmental statutes in areas with minority and low-income populations;
- ensuring greater public participation;
- improving research and data collection relating to the health and environment of minority and low-income populations; and
- identifying differential patterns of consumption of natural resources among minority and low-income populations.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that federal funds
be used in a fair and equitable manner. Under Title VI any federal
agency that receives federal funding cannot discriminate. Title VI also
forbids federal agencies from providing grants or funding opportunities
to programs that discriminate. An agency that violates Title VI can lose
its federal funding.
Following E.O. 12898 and USDA's initial EJ strategic plan, USDA
issued its internal Environmental Justice Department Regulation (DR
5600-002) in 1997.
Although the definition of EJ was undergoing updates in 2012, DR
5600-002 defines environmental justice as "to the greatest extent
practicable and permitted by law, all populations are provided the
opportunity to comment before decisions are rendered on, are allowed to
share in the benefits of, are not excluded from, and are not affected in
a disproportionately high and adverse manner by, government programs
and activities affecting human health or the environment."
Patrick Holmes, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Natural
Resources and Environment at USDA, notes that this definition will be
broadened in 2012 so that EJ also includes efforts to improve quality of
life in all communities. In other words, USDA will consider EJ to include avoiding adverse impacts and
ensuring access to environmental benefits. Further, DR 5600-002
identified USDA's goals in implementing Executive Order 12898 as:
- To incorporate environmental justice considerations into USDA's programs and activities and to address environmental justice across mission areas;
- To identify, prevent, and/or mitigate, to the greatest extent practicable, disproportionately high and adverse human health or environmental effects of USDA programs and activities on minority and low-income populations; and
- To provide, to the greatest extent practicable, the opportunity for minority and low-income populations to participate in planning, analysis, and decisionmaking that affects their health or environment, including identification of program needs and designs.
DR 5600-002 is "intended only to improve the internal management of
USDA," and although it described concrete, mandatory actions by the
agency, it did not establish new rights or benefits enforceable in
court.
In April 2011, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has stated a more concrete
priority to fulfill its mission of environmental justice in rural areas.
2012 Environmental Justice Strategy
In
compliance with the August 2011 Memorandum of Understanding on
Environmental Justice and Executive Order 12898 (MOU), USDA released a
final Environmental Justice Strategic Plan: 2012 to 2014 on February 7,
2012 (Strategic Plan), which identifies new and updated goals and
performance measures beyond what USDA identified in a 1995 EJ strategy
it adopted in response to E.O. 12898. In the same week, it also released its first annual implementation progress report (Progress Report), as the MOU also required.
The Secretary's message accompanying the Strategic Plan described two
immediate tasks: 1) each agency within USDA is required to identify a
point of contact for EJ issues, at the Senior Executive Service (SES)
level; and 2) each agency must develop its own EJ strategy prior to
April 15, 2012, and begin implementing it as soon as possible.
As of May 2012, it did not appear that such strategies had been made
public, although sub-agencies provided internal reports to the USDA's EJ
steering committee on April 9, 2012, according to Holmes. The
Secretary's message contained strong language that, "Given that USDA
programs touch almost every American every day, the Department is well
positioned to help in [the environmental justice] effort."
USDA has determined that it can achieve the requirements of the
Executive Order by integrating EJ into its programs, rather than
implementing new and costly programs. The agency took this same approach in an EJ strategy it adopted in 1995.
In some areas, such as agricultural chemicals and effects to migrant
workers, USDA reviews its practices to identify potential
disproportionate, adverse impacts on EJ communities, according to Blake
Velde, Senior Environmental Scientist with the USDA Hazardous Materials
Management Division.
Generally, however, USDA believes its existing technical and financial
assistance programs provide solutions to environmental inequity, such as
its initiatives on education, food deserts, and economic development in
impacted communities, and ensuring access to environmental benefits is
the focus of USDA's EJ efforts.
Natural Resources and Environment (NRE) Under Secretary Harris
Sherman is the political appointee generally responsible for USDA's EJ
strategy, with Patrick Holmes, a senior staffer to the Under Secretary,
playing a coordinating role. Although USDA has no staff dedicated solely
to EJ, its sub-agencies have many offices dedicated to civil rights
compliance, outreach and communication and environmental review whose
responsibilities incorporate EJ issues.
The Strategic Plan was developed with the input of an Environmental
Justice Working Group, made up of staff and leadership representing the
USDA's seven mission areas and the SES-level contacts, which were
appointed in early 2012, serve as a steering committee for the agency's
efforts.
The Strategic Plan is organized according to six goals, which were
purposefully left broad, and lists specific objectives and agency
performance measures under each goal. The details and specific
implementation of many of these programs and the performance measures
are left to the departments and sub-agencies to develop. The six goals are to:
- Ensure USDA programs provide opportunities for EJ communities.
- Provide targeted training and capacity-building to EJ communities.
- Expand public participation in agency activities, to enhance the "credibility and public trust" of the USDA.
- Ensure USDA's activities do not have disproportionately high and adverse human health impacts, and resolve environmental justice issues and complaints.
- Increase the awareness of EJ issues among USDA employees.
- Update and/or Develop Departmental and Agency Regulations on EJ.
The Strategic Plan also lists existing programs that either currently
support the goal, or are expected to in the future. According to
Holmes, some of the challenges of the Strategic Plan process have
stemmed from the diverse programs and missions that the agency serves,
limitations on staff time, and budgets.
Environmental Justice initiatives
The
Strategic Plan requires that EJ must be integrated into the strategies
and evaluations for sub-agencies' technical and financial assistance
programs. It also emphasizes public participation, community capacity-building, EJ awareness and training within the USDA.
Transparency, accountability, accessibility and community participation
A
stated goal of USDA's Strategic Plan is to expand public participation
in agency activities, to enhance the "credibility and public trust" of
the USDA.
Specifically, the agency will update its public participation
guidelines to include EJ, beginning this process by April 15, 2012. The
Strategic Plan emphasizes capacity-building in EJ communities, and
includes objectives that emphasize communication between USDA and
environmental justice communities, including Tribal consultation.
Sub-agencies must announce schedules for training programs in EJ
communities and to develop new, preliminary outreach materials on USDA
programs by April 15, 2012.
An additional performance standard is to encourage EJ communities to
participate in the NEPA process, an effort the Strategic Plan requires
on or before February 29, 2012,
although the Strategic Plan does not articulate a standard by which
this could be measured. The Strategic Plan also reiterates compliance
with the Executive Orders on Tribal consultation and outreach to
non-proficient English speakers, and seeks more diverse representation
on regional forest advisory committees. [community participation,
outreach]
Generally, the USDA's process for developing the Strategic Plan
demonstrates a commitment to public involvement. The USDA EJ documents
are currently housed obscurely within the Departmental Management
section of the USDA website, under the Hazardous Materials Management
Division, although the agency plans to update its entire site in 2012
and create a more robust EJ page.
The Strategic Plan was released in draft form in December 2011 for a
30-day public comment period, and responses to general types of comments
received are in the Progress Report, although the comments themselves
are not online.
The Secretary's message accompanying the Strategic Plan requests that
organizations and individuals to continue to contact USDA with comments
on the Strategic Plan and to identify USDA programs that have been the
most beneficial to their communities.
The agency has a dedicated email address for this purpose. Agency
leadership has asked its sub-agencies to prepare responses to additional
comments that have been received, and the agency will release an
interim progress report, prior to winter 2013. [community participation, outreach, education]
Internal evaluation and training
The Strategic Plan also seeks to increase the awareness of environmental justice issues among USDA employees.
The Strategic Plan does not list any existing programs in this area,
but does list a series of performance measures going forward, most of
which must be met by April 15, 2012. The measures include environmental
justice trainings, new web pages, and potential revisions to staff
manuals and handbooks. Sub-agencies began reviewing their existing
training in 2012 and in their April 9, 2012 reports to the USDA EJ
steering committee, sub-agencies were asked to describe their goals for
enhanced EJ training.
This internal, educational undertaking appears to be new in the 2012
Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan targets Responsible Officials,
meaning office and program managers, for the trainings, as well as the
SES-level points of contact required by the Secretary's message.
[education, study, compliance and enforcement]
The EJ Strategy tasked each sub-agency with developing its own EJ
strategy document by spring 2012, although as of May 2012 the
sub-agencies were still in an evaluation stage and had not issued final
documents. For many sub-agencies, the 2012 process has been their first focused assessment of their EJ impact and opportunities.
Going forward, sub-agencies will submit twice-yearly reports to NRE
about their implementation of the Strategic Plan's goals; the first of
these was due April 9, 2012, and as of May 2012, the USDA's EJ steering
committee was evaluating the first reports.
Establishment of performance metrics
As
part of its effort to ensure that EJ communities have the opportunity
to participate in USDA programs, the Strategic Plan requires each
sub-agency to set measurements through which it can track increased EJ
community participation in USDA technical and financial assistance
programs.
This must be done by April 15, 2012. As of late April 2012, the
sub-agencies were still in the process of describing a baseline of
current activities and determining the metrics to evaluate improvement,
such as staff time, grant funding or increased programming.
The ultimate metrics are likely to be somewhat subjective, and must be
flexible given the broad range of undertakings by the sub-agencies.
Also related to evaluation, the Strategic Plan requires the
sub-agencies to determine an effective methodology with which they can
evaluate whether USDA programs have disproportionate impacts. [study, redressing environmental racism, compliance and enforcement]
Other EJ initiatives
Tribal outreach
USDA has had a role in implementing Michelle Obama's Let's Move
campaign in Tribal Areas, by increasing participation by Bureau of
Indian Education schools in Federal nutrition programs, in the
development of community gardens on Tribal lands, and in the development
of Tribal food policy councils. This is combined with measures to provide Rural Development funding for community infrastructure in Indian Country. [children's issues, education, diet, grants, Native Americans, public health].
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) is working to update its policy on
protection and management of Native American Sacred Sites, an effort
that has included listening sessions and government-to-government
consultation.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has also
consulted with Tribes regarding management of reintroduced of species,
where Tribes may have a history of subsistence-level hunting of those
species. Meanwhile, the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is
exploring a program to use meat from bisons raised on Tribal land to
supply AMS food distribution programs to Tribes. [Native Americans, diet, subsistence, community participation]
The Intertribal Technical Assistance Network works to improve
access of Tribal governments, communities and individuals to USDA
technical assistance programs.
Technical and financial assistance to farmers
The
Progress Report highlights the NRCS Strike Force Initiative, which has
identified impoverished counties in Mississippi, Georgia and Arkansas to
receive increased outreach and training regarding USDA assistance
programs. USDA credits this increased outreach with generating a 196
percent increase in contracts, representing more than 250,000 acres of
farmland, in its Environmental Quality Incentives Program.
[economic benefit, equitable development, grants, outreach, ej as
evaluation criteria] NRCS works with "private landowners protect their
natural resources" through conservation planning and assistance with the goal of maintaining "productive lands and healthy ecosystems."
NRCS has its own civil rights compliance guidance document, and in 2001
NRCS funded and published a study, "Environmental Justice: Perceptions
of Issues, Awareness and Assistance," focused on rural, Southern "Black
Belt" counties and analyzing how the NRCS workforce could more
effectively integrate environmental justice into impacted communities. [compliance and enforcement, redressing environmental racism, grants, study, ej as evaluation criteria]
The Farm Services Agency in 2011 devoted $100,000 of its Socially
Disadvantaged Farmers and Ranchers program budget to improving its
outreach to counties with persistent poverty, including improving its
materials and building relationships with local universities and
community groups. [economic benefit, equitable development, grants, outreach, ej as evaluation criteria]
In addition, USDA's Risk Management Agency has initiated
education and outreach to low-income farmers regarding use of biological
controls, rather than pesticides, for pest control, efforts that the
agency believes are valuable in the face of climate change. [climate change, agricultural chemicals, education]
Green jobs and capacity building
A
2011 MOU between a USDA sub-agency, the Food Safety Inspection Service
(FSIS) and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society that aims
to increase the number of Native Americans entering the FSIS career
path. [education, community participation, economic benefit, green jobs, Native Americans, diet, inter-agency collaboration]
A partnership between APHIS and the Rural Coalition
(Coalicion)--an alliance of regionally and culturally diverse
organizations working to build a more just and sustainable food system.
The partnership focuses on outreach, fair returns to minority and other
small farmers and rural communities, farmworker working conditions,
environmental protection and food safety.
[agricultural chemicals, community participation, diet, economic
benefit, outreach, improving health and safety, ej as evaluation
criteria]
USFS is also funding pilot initiatives, such as its Urban Water
Ambassadors, summer internship positions for youth who coordinate and
implement urban tree planting projects.
In 2011, USFS provided a grant to the Maryland Department of Natural
Resources that funded 14 summer jobs for youth in Baltimore to work on
urban watershed restoration programs. [community participation, green jobs, mapping, water]
Mapping
USFS
has established several Urban Field Stations, to research urban natural
resources' structure, function, stewardship, and benefits. By mapping urban tree coverage, the agency hopes to identify and prioritize EJ communities for urban forest projects. [community education, mapping, diet, improving health and safety, ej as evaluation criteria]
Another initiative highlighted by the agency is the Food and
Nutrition Service and Economic Research Service's Food Desert Locator.
The Locator provides a spatial view of food deserts, defined as a
low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents
has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store. It also shows,
by census tract, the number and percentage of certain populations, such
as children, seniors, or households without a vehicle, with low access
to grocery stores. The mapped deserts can be used to direct agency
resources to increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables and other
food assistance programs, according to Blake Velde, an agency scientist
and spokesperson on EJ issues. [diet, mapping, improving health and safety, study, ej as evaluation criteria, services and data available to others]
Rural outreach
USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has placed a clear emphasis on supporting EJ in rural areas.
Although "often the highest profile battles on [environmental justice]
issue[s] are waged in at-risk neighborhoods in major cities or at
Superfund sites located near populated urban and suburban areas"
Vilsack highlighted the often overlooked rural areas where environmental
justice is largely ignored.
Through its Rural Utilities Service, the USDA supports a number
of Water and Environmental Programs. These programs work to administer
water and wastewater loans or grants to rural areas and cities to
support water and wastewater, stormwater and solid waste disposal
systems, including SEARCH grants that are targeted to financially
distressed, small rural communities and other opportunities specifically
for Alaskan Native villages and designated Colonias.;
In his speech, Secretary Vilsack said that the USDA funded 2,575 clean
water projects in rural areas during a two-year period to address
problems ranging from wastewater treatment to sewage treatment. [water, land use, compliance and enforcement, improving health and safety, pollution cleanup, ej as evaluation criteria]
The USDA also supports the Rural Energy for America Grant
Program. This program provides grants and loans to farmers, ranchers and
rural small businesses to finance renewable energy systems and energy
efficiency improvements. [grants, economic benefit, ej as evaluation criteria]
Regulations or Formalized EJ Guidelines
In
1997 the USDA promulgated a departmental regulation providing
"direction to [sub-]agencies for integrating environmental justice
considerations into USDA programs and activities" (DR 5600-002). Issuance of this regulation was a primary goal of USDA's 1995 EJ strategy document.
DR 5600-002 includes guidelines for consideration of EJ in the NEPA
process, but also stated that "efforts to address environmental justice
are not limited to NEPA compliance."
It requires evaluation of activities for potential disproportionate EJ
impacts, outreach, and performance-metric based evaluation and reporting
on sub-agencies' implementation of EJ goals.
DR 5600-002 is a forward-looking, permanent directive that applies to
all USDA programs and activities. However, it was not published in the
Federal Register as a formal rule making and does not create a private
right of action or enforcement tool. A Strategic Plan goal is to update this regulation, as well as other departmental regulations and policies on EJ.
According to USDA, the EJ definition in DR 5600-002 will be modified in
2012—EJ to include measures to avoid disproportionate negative impacts
as well as quality-of-life improvements that the agency believes can
benefit impacted communities.
The Strategic Plan also has established a performance standard
requiring that existing and new USDA regulations are evaluated for EJ
impacts or benefits.
Sub-agencies are required to develop a process for this evaluation by
April 15, 2012. This performance standard reflects a requirement in DR
5600-002 that required the USDA departmental regulation on rule making,
DR 1521-1, to be revised to require an EJ evaluation in the rule making
process.
As of 2012, DR 1521-1 requires that a cost-benefit analysis of major
human health, safety and environmental regulations include analysis of
risks to "persons who are disproportionately exposed or particularly
sensitive," although DR 1521-1 does not mention EJ or impacts to
minority or low-income communities explicitly. [Land Use - permitting, community participation, compliance and enforcement, study]
Enforcement
The
Strategic Plan sets an enforcement-specific goal, which includes
objectives to "effectively resolve or adjudicate all environmental
justice-related Title VI complaints" and to include environmental
justice as a key component of civil rights compliance reviews.
Agencies are also required to identify an assessment methodology by
April 15, 2012, which can be used to determine whether programs have
disproportionately high and adverse environmental and human health
impacts. The NRCS has published and updated a Civil Rights Compliance
Review Guide, which guides the NRCS Civil Rights Division's review of
the compliance with Title VI and 12898 in the agency's state offices,
field offices and other facilities. The guide was updated in November 2011 and it does not mention EJ explicitly.
However, the Strategic Plan identifies the NRCS compliance review and
other outreach and research programs as supporting its EJ enforcement
goals. [compliance and enforcement]
NEPA
The 1997 Regulation, DR 5600-2 required USDA sub-agencies to develop their own NEPA environmental justice guidance documents.
The sub-agencies have done so, with some additional details, such as a
reminder that the EJ community should be involved in identifying the
alternatives, suggested stakeholders and resources, and guidance to hold
meetings at times when working people can get to them, and to translate
notices.
However, when DR 5600-02 is updated as required by the Strategic Plan,
changes could be made to the NEPA section of the Regulation. The
Strategic Plan sets a performance standard to encourage interested
environmental justice communities to be involved in the public
participation process for NEPA documents, although the Strategic Plan
does not require updates to the NEPA portions of DR 5600-02.
Although the USDA has integrated EJ into each step of the NEPA
process as required by Executive Order 12898, many of the NEPA documents
completed by the USDA include only cursory analysis of environmental
justice effects. This analysis most often includes a rote paragraph as
to what Executive Order 12898 requires and a quick conclusion that the
agency action does not affect minority and low-income populations. Some
examples where the USDA included more in-depth analysis are:
- Descriptions of the minority and low-income populations that live in the study area;
- Impacts relevant to socio-economic environment including changes in employment and income variations in the distribution of social welfare. [community participation, education, outreach, ej as evaluation criteria]
Title VI
The
USDA has an Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights whose
mission it is to provide leadership and direction "for the fair and
equitable treatment of all USDA customers."
In 2003 the USDA revised DR 4300-4, internal regulations
requiring a Civil Rights Impact Analysis of all "policies, actions or
decisions" affecting the USDA's federally conducted and federally
assisted programs or activities.
The analysis is used to determine the "scope, intensity, direction,
duration, and significance of the effects of an agency's proposed ...
policies, actions or decisions."
USDA's departmental regulation on EJ, DR 5600-002, required DR 4300-4
to be revised to "require that Civil Rights Impact Analyses include a
finding as to whether proposed or new actions have or do not have a
disproportionately high and adverse effect on the human health or the
environment of minority populations, and whether such effects can be
prevented or mitigated".
Although DR 4300-4 was revised in 2003, the revised regulation does not
explicitly require a finding on adverse environmental or health
impacts. [study, compliance and enforcement]
Right-to-know movement
A new movement, bent on educating the people, was born after the Bhopal disaster, called the "right-to-know" movement. A series of laws and reports was created, all built to inform the people of the pollutants being dumped into our
neighborhoods and atmosphere, and exactly how much of each chemical is
being exposed and dumped. The theory behind "right-to-know" is that once
people are informed on what is polluting their neighborhood, then they
will begin to take action in both bringing down their own emissions, as
well as begin to make the companies causing the most pollution, through
means such as protests, to take into account their actions.
Emergency Planning and Right to Know Act of 1986
After the Bhopal disaster, where a Union Carbide plant released forty tons of methyl isocyanate into the atmosphere in a village just south of Bhopal, India, the U.S. government passed the Emergency Planning and Right to Know Act of 1986.
Introduced by Henry Waxman, the act required all corporations to
report their toxic chemical pollution annually, which was then gathered
into a report known as the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI).
By collecting this data, the government was able to make sure that
companies were no longer releasing excessive amounts of deadly toxins
into populated areas, so to prevent another incident like that of the
thousands of people killed and the tens of thousands of people injured
in the Bhopal disaster.
Corporate Toxics Information Report
The Corporate Toxics Information Project (CTIP)
was founded on the guidelines that they will "[develop] and
[disseminate] information and analysis on corporate releases of
pollutants and the consequences for communities". The overarching goal
was to help take corporations into account for their pollution habits,
by collecting information and putting it in databases so to make it
available to the general public. The four goals of the project were to
develop 1) corporate rankings, 2) regional reports, based on state,
region, and metropolitan areas, 3) industry reports, based on industrial
sectors, and 4) to create a web-based resource open to the entire
population, that can depict all the collected data. The data collection
would be done by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and then analyzed and disseminated by the PERI institute.
One of the biggest projects of CTIP was the Toxic 100.
The Toxic 100 is an index of the top 100 air polluters around the
United States in terms of the country's largest corporations. The list
is based on the EPA's Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI),
which "assesses the chronic human health risk from industrial toxic
releases", as well as the Toxics Release Inventory
(TRI), which is where the corporations must report their chemical
releases to the US government. Since its original publishing date in
2004, the Toxic 100 has been updated four more times, with the latest
publishing date being August 2013.
Around the world
In recent years environmental justice campaigns have also emerged in
other parts of the world, such as India, South Africa, Israel, Nigeria,
Mexico, Hungary, Uganda, and the United Kingdom. In Europe for example,
there is evidence to suggest that the Romani people and other minority groups of non-European descent are suffering from environmental inequality and discrimination.
Europe
In Europe, the Romani peoples
are ethnic minorities and differ from the rest of the European people
by their culture, language, and history. The environmental
discrimination that they experience ranges from the unequal distribution
of environmental harms as well as the unequal distribution of
education, health services and employment. In many countries Romani
peoples are forced to live in the slums because many of the laws to get
residence permits are discriminatory against them. This forces Romani
people to live in urban "ghetto" type housing or in shantytowns. In the
Czech Republic and Romania, the Romani peoples are forced to live in
places that have less access to running water and sewage, and in
Ostrava, Czech Republic, the Romani people live in apartments located
above an abandoned mine, which emits methane. Also in Bulgaria, the
public infrastructure extends throughout the town of Sofia until it
reaches the Romani village where there is very little water access or
sewage capacity.
The European Union is trying to strive towards environmental
justice by putting into effect declarations that state that all people
have a right to a healthy environment. The Stockholm Declaration, the
1987 Brundtland Commission's Report – "Our Common Future", the Rio Declaration, and Article 37 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, all are ways that the Europeans have put acts in place to work toward environmental justice. Europe also funds action-oriented projects that work on furthering Environmental Justice throughout the world. For example, EJOLT (Environmental Justice Organisations, Liabilities and Trade) is a large multinational project supported through the FP7 Science in Society budget line from the European Commission.
From March 2011 to March 2015, 23 civil society organizations and
universities from 20 countries in Europe, Africa, Latin-America, and
Asia are, and have promised to work together on advancing the cause of
Environmental Justice. EJOLT is building up case studies, linking
organisations worldwide, and making an interactive global map of
Environmental Justice.
Sweden
Sweden became the first country to ban DDT
in 1969 due to the efforts of women protesting its usage in forests. In
the 1980s, women activists organized around preparing jam made from
pesticide-tainted berries, which they offered to the members of
parliament. Parliament members refused, and this has often been cited as an example of direct action within ecofeminism.
United Kingdom
Whilst
the predominant agenda of the Environmental Justice movement in the
United States has been tackling issues of race, inequality, and the
environment, environmental justice campaigns around the world have
developed and shifted in focus. For example, the EJ movement in the
United Kingdom is quite different. It focuses on issues of poverty and
the environment, but also tackles issues of health inequalities and social exclusion. A UK-based NGO, named the Environmental Justice Foundation, has sought to make a direct link between the need for environmental security and the defense of basic human rights.
They have launched several high profile campaigns that link
environmental problems and social injustices. A campaign against
illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing highlighted how 'pirate' fisherman are stealing food from local, artisanal fishing communities. They have also launched a campaign exposing the environmental and human rights abuses involved in cotton production in Uzbekistan. Cotton produced in Uzbekistan is often harvested by children
for little or no pay. In addition, the mismanagement of water resources
for crop irrigation has led to the near eradication of the Aral Sea. The Environmental Justice Foundation has successfully petitioned large retailers such as Wal-mart and Tesco to stop selling Uzbek cotton.
Building of alternatives to climate change
In France, numerous Alternatiba events, or villages of alternatives, are providing hundreds of alternatives to climate change
and lack of environmental justice, both in order to raise people's
awareness and to stimulate behaviour change. They have been or will be
organized in over sixty different French and European cities, such as Bilbao, Brussels, Geneva, Lyon or Paris.
South Africa
Under colonial and apartheid
governments in South Africa, thousands of black South Africans were
removed from their ancestral lands to make way for game parks. Earthlife
Africa was formed in 1988 (www.earthlife.org.za), making it Africa's
first environmental justice organization. In 1992, the Environmental
Justice Networking Forum (EJNF), a nationwide umbrella organization
designed to coordinate the activities of environmental activists and
organizations interested in social and environmental justice, was
created. By 1995, the network expanded to include 150 member
organizations and by 2000, it included over 600 member organizations.
With the election of the African National Congress
(ANC) in 1994, the environmental justice movement gained an ally in
government. The ANC noted "poverty and environmental degradation have
been closely linked" in South Africa.
The ANC made it clear that environmental inequalities and injustices
would be addressed as part of the party's post-apartheid reconstruction
and development mandate. The new South African Constitution, finalized
in 1996, includes a Bill of Rights that grants South Africans the right
to an "environment that is not harmful to their health or well-being"
and "to have the environment protected, for the benefit of present and
future generations through reasonable legislative and other measures
that
- prevent pollution and ecological degradation;
- promote conservation; and
- secure ecologically sustainable development and use of natural resources while promoting justifiable economic and social development".
South Africa's mining industry is the largest single producer of solid waste, accounting for about two-thirds of the total waste stream. Tens of thousands of deaths have occurred among mine workers as a result of accidents over the last century. There have been several deaths and debilitating diseases from work-related illnesses like asbestosis.
For those who live next to a mine, the quality of air and water is
poor. Noise, dust, and dangerous equipment and vehicles can be threats
to the safety of those who live next to a mine as well. These communities are often poor and black and have little choice over the placement of a mine near their homes. The National Party
introduced a new Minerals Act that began to address environmental
considerations by recognizing the health and safety concerns of workers
and the need for land rehabilitation during and after mining operations.
In 1993, the Act was amended to require each new mine to have an
Environmental Management Program Report (EMPR) prepared before breaking
ground. These EMPRs were intended to force mining companies to outline
all the possible environmental impacts of the particular mining
operation and to make provision for environmental management.
In October 1998, the Department of Minerals and Energy released a White Paper entitled A Minerals and Mining Policy for South Africa,
which included a section on Environmental Management. The White Paper
states "Government, in recognition of the responsibility of the State as
custodian of the nation's natural resources, will ensure that the
essential development of the country's mineral resources will take place
within a framework of sustainable development and in accordance with
national environmental policy, norms, and standards". It adds that any
environmental policy "must ensure a cost-effective and competitive
mining industry."
Australia
In
Australia, the "Environmental Justice Movement" is not defined as it is
in the United States. Australia does have some discrimination mainly in
the siting of hazardous waste facilities in areas where the people are
not given proper information about the company. The injustice that takes
place in Australia is defined as environmental politics on who get the
unwanted waste site or who has control over where factory opens up. The
movement towards equal environmental politics focuses more on who can
fight for companies to build, and takes place in the parliament;
whereas, in the United States Environmental Justice is trying to make
nature safer for all people.
Ecuador
An example of the environmental injustices that indigenous groups face can be seen in the Chevron-Texaco incident in the Amazon rainforest. Texaco, which is now Chevron, found oil in Ecuador in 1964 and built sub-standard oil wells to cut costs.
The deliberately used inferior technology to make their operations
cheaper, even if detrimental to the local people and environment. After
the company left in 1992, they left approximately one thousand toxic waste pits open and dumped billions of gallons of toxic water into the rivers.
South Korea
South Korea has a relatively short history of environmental justice compared to other countries in the west. As a result of rapid industrialization,
people started to have awareness on pollution, and from the
environmental discourses the idea of environmental justice appeared. The
concept of environmental justice appeared in South Korea in late 1980s.
South Korea experienced rapid economic growth (which is commonly referred to as the 'Miracle on the Han River') in the 20th century as a result of industrialization policies adapted by Park Chung-hee
after 1970s. The policies and social environment had no room for
environmental discussions, which aggravated the pollution in the
country.
Environmental movements in South Korea started from air pollution
campaigns. As the notion of environment pollution spread, the focus on
environmental activism shifted from existing pollution to preventing
future pollution, and the organizations eventually started to criticize
the government policies that are neglecting the environmental issues.
The concept of environmental justice was introduced in South Korea among
the discussions of environment after 1990s. While the environmental
organizations analyzed the condition of pollution in South Korea, they
noticed that the environmental problems were inequitably focused
especially on regions where people with low social and economic status
were concentrated.
The problems of environmental injustice have arisen by
environment related organizations, but approaches to solve the problems
were greatly supported by the government, which developed various
policies and launched institution. These actions helped raise awareness
of environmental justice in South Korea. Existing environment policies
were modified to cover environmental justice issues.
Environmental justice began to be widely recognized in the 1990s
through policy making and researches of related institutions. For
example, the Ministry of Environment,
which was founded in 1992, launched Citizen's Movement for
Environmental Justice (CMEJ) to raise awareness of the problem and
figure out appropriate plans.
As a part of its activities, Citizen's Movement for Environmental
Justice (CMEJ) held Environmental Justice forum in 1999, to gather and
analyze the existing studies on the issue which were done sporadically
by various organizations. Citizen's Movement for Environmental Justice
(CMEJ) started as a small organization, but it is keep growing and
expanding. In 2002, CMEJ had more than 5 times the numbers of members
and 3 times the budget it had in the beginning year.
Environmental injustice is still an ongoing problem. One example is the construction of Saemangeum Seawall. The construction of Saemangeum Seawall, which is the world's longest dyke (33 kilometers) runs between Yellow Sea and Saemangeum estuary, was part of a government project initiated in 1991.
The project raised concerns on the destruction of ecosystem and taking
away the local residential regions. It caught the attention of
environmental justice activists because the main victims were low-income
fishing population and their future generations. This is considered as
an example of environmental injustice which was caused by the execution
of exclusive development-centered policy.
The construction of Seoul-Incheon canal also raised environmental justice controversies.
The construction took away the residential regions and farming areas of
the local residents. Also, the environment worsened in the area because
of the appearance of wet fogs which was caused by water deprivation and
local climate changes caused by the construction of canal. The local
residents, mostly people with weak economic basis, were severely
affected by the construction and became the main victims of such
environmental damages. While the socially and economically weak citizens
suffered from the environmental changes, most of the benefits went to
the industries and conglomerates with political power.
Construction of industrial complex
was also criticized in the context of environmental justice. The
conflict in Wicheon region is one example. The region became the center
of controversy when the government decided to build industrial complex
of dye houses, which were formerly located in Daegu metropolitan region. As a result of the construction, Nakdong River,
which is one of the main rivers in South Korea, was contaminated and
local residents suffered from environmental changes caused by the
construction.
Environmental justice is a growing issue in South Korea. Although
the issue is not yet widely recognized compared to other countries,
many organizations beginning to recognize the issue.
Between Northern and Southern countries
Environmental
discrimination in a global perspective is also an important factor when
examining the Environmental Justice movement. Even though the
Environmental Justice movement began in the United States, the United
States also contributes to expanding the amount of environmental
injustice that takes place in less-developed countries.
Some companies in the United States and in other developed nations
around the world contribute to the injustice by shipping the toxic waste
and byproducts of factories to less-developed countries for disposal.
This act increases the amount of waste in the third world countries,
most of which do not have proper sanitation for their own waste much
less the waste of another country. Often, the people of the
less-developed countries are exposed to toxins from this waste and do
not even realize what kind of waste they are encountering or the health
problems that could come with it.
One prominent example of northern countries shipping their waste to southern countries took place in Haiti.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania had ash from the incineration of toxic waste
that they did not have room to dump. Philadelphia decided to put the
ash into the hands of a private company, which shipped the ash and
dumped it in various other parts of the world, outside of the United
States. The Khian Sea,
the ship the ash was put on, sailed around the world and many countries
would not accept the waste because it was hazardous for the environment
and the people. The ship owners finally dumped the waste, labeled
Fertilizer, in Haiti, on the beach, and sailed away in the night. The
government of Haiti was infuriated and called for the waste to be
removed, but the company would not come to take the ash away. The
fighting over who was responsible for the waste and who would remove the
waste went on for many years. After debating for over ten years, the
waste was removed and taken back to a site just outside Philadelphia to
be disposed of permanently.
The reason that this transporting of waste from Northern
countries to the Southern countries takes place is because it is cheaper
to transport waste to another country and dump it there, than to pay to
dump the waste in the producing country because the third world
countries do not have the same strict industry regulations as the more
developed countries. The countries that the waste is taken to are
usually impoverished and the governments have little or no control over
the happenings in the country or do not care about the people.
Transnational movement networks
Many
of the Environmental Justice Networks that began in the United States
expanded their horizons to include many other countries and became
Transnational Networks for Environmental Justice. These networks work to
bring Environmental Justice to all parts of the world and protect all
citizens of the world to reduce the environmental injustice happening
all over the world. Listed below are some of the major Transnational
Social Movement Organizations.
- Basel Action Network – works to end toxic waste dumping in poor undeveloped countries from the rich developed countries.
- GAIA (Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance) – works to find different ways to dispose of waste other than incineration. This company has people working in over 77 countries throughout the world.
- GR (Global Response) – works to educate activists and the upper working class how to protect human rights and the ecosystem.
- Greenpeace International – which was the first organization to become the global name of Environmental Justice. Greenpeace works to raise the global consciousness of transnational trade of toxic waste.
- Health Care without Harm – works to improve the public health by reducing the environmental impacts of the health care industry.
- International Campaign for Responsible Technology – works to promote corporate and government accountability with electronics and how the disposal of technology affect the environment.
- International POPs Elimination Network – works to reduce and eventually end the use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) which are harmful to the environment.
- PAN (Pesticide Action Network) – works to replace the use of hazardous pesticides with alternatives that are safe for the environment.
.JPG)
