Environmental racism has to stop

There is such a thing as environmental racism, and its ruinous effects on poor people of colour have been well documented around St Louis. A tour of just about any industrial area in America with housing nearby reveals the close relationship between poverty and pollution, with minorities bearing disproportionate levels of exposure to the dangers. The St Louis area continues to grapple with the effects of racist zoning decisions made decades ago that deliberately concentrated polluting industries near Black neighbourhoods or prevented Blacks from living anywhere but near industrial areas.

Exhibit A is Carter Carburetor in north St Louis, a heavy industrial plant whose grounds were packed with asbestos, PCBS and a volatile organic cleaning compound known as TCE that permeates buildings and pollutes air and ground water. In Metro East, an industrial incinerator in Sauget posed potentially significant dangers to nearby poor residents when it was authorised to begin burning PFAS, a highly carcinogenic coating used on non-stick cookware and as a fire retardant.

In all such cases, it’s the nearby residents – typically people of colour – who pay the price when their exposure leads to cancer, higher rates of asthma and blood disorders. The Illinois Legislature is weighing a bill that would impose a statewide ban on incinerating PFAS. ‘‘This one step will be the beginning of us not having to breathe dirty air any more,’’ Marie Franklin, a nearby resident, told public radio. ‘‘Burn that stuff next door to your momma, not mine.’’