The next time some perky, well-meaning health professional cheers you on to take charge of your health, remember to ask her how to do it without breathing. That’s what it would take for Detroit residents who live in the shadow of the world’s largest incinerator, owned by Covanta.
A coalition, including local environmental justice groups, the Teamsters, and neighborhood residents, is calling for the plant to be closed. Hesperian staff and several hundred others attending the US Social Forum, joined them by participating in a march on June 26. The coalition says, “Detroit’s children suffer asthma rates three times the national average. The municipal incinerator is a major contributor to these devastating health impacts. Meanwhile, the recycling rate in the city is less than a third the national average.” They are advocating for resources to be put into recycling instead of incineration, which provides good jobs and is better for people and the planet.
As we walked through the urban neighborhood near the incinerator, marchers covered their faces, choking on the thick, foul air. We walked by a park, a school, a church, and down residential streets, where people daily breathe in the incinerator fumes. We were appalled to see houses literally right next to the incinerator.
The march made it painfully clear to us that whether we are able to live healthy lives has only partially to do with the individual decisions we make or our genetic makeup. More critically, our health is a product of our environment, of our social, political, and economic realities.
Activists from Detroit and around the country described those diverse but connected realities and their common struggles for health and environmental justice—fighting coal mining in West Virginia, trash incineration in New Jersey, and the Chevron oil refinery right here in Richmond, CA. Their stories echoed others we had heard earlier that week, of people fighting for their right to health in communities across the country and around the world, often in the face of incredible odds.
Detroit’s weekly, The Metro Times, described the march in their summary of the USSF:
On Saturday, when an estimated 1,000 people marched from the city's main public library on Woodward Avenue to the incinerator located near the intersection of Interstates 94 and 75, residents of the 48217 ZIP were shoulder to shoulder with environmental activists, out-of-town forum attendees, people living around the incinerator and a dozen men wearing shirts that identified them as "Teamsters for Clean Air, Good Jobs & Justice."
Asked why Teamsters would be supporting an action like this, one of them replied, "We breathe the air too." And, moreover, said organizer Alex Young, recycling operations in places like Oakland, Calif., are providing union members good-paying, green jobs.
Among those joining the march on what has been described as the world's largest incinerator was Cynthia Mellon of Newark, N.J., home to what she said is the world's second-largest incinerator.
"We didn't know you existed before," she told the Detroiters. "Now we are all part of a big cause."
Rhonda Anderson, who does environmental justice work for the Sierra Club's Detroit office, has been one of those working for more than two years to get the incinerator shut down. One of several speakers to address the crowd, Anderson choked back emotion as she declared: "You have lifted our spirits. You have raised our expectations. You have served as a model for our children."
San Francisco author and historian Chris Carlsson described the action to close the incinerator on his blog:
“Demonstrations took place around Detroit to address local issues, from a small-ish demo outside DTE Energy, the local utility, to a larger march on Saturday against a massive trash incinerator. …. Incineration of trash instead of a curbside recycling program is a self-defeating industrial process. The utility claims that burning trash to make electricity in a state-of-the-art facility reduces carbon emissions over putting it all in landfill, which is questionable at best. But if you take into account the “externalities” of local health problems, air pollution, etc., not to mention that it takes rather fewer people to collect the garbage and dump it into an incinerator than it does to run a robust recycling program that makes use locally of the materials it recycles, and you are compounding a whole series of social problems… I learned later that the fight against the incinerator has been going on for over 20 years!”
Hesperian has long recognized the connection between health and the environment. Our newest book, A Community Guide to Environmental Health focuses on giving people the tools to address environmental problems in their communities. It includes an entire chapter of alternatives to incineration to deal with solid wastes, as well as detailed plans for health clinics to safely handle health wastes without burning.
Photo by Amanda Starbuck
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