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community view

Environmental Justice

I

n the weeks following the events in
Charlottesville, and in our country’s
continuing political climate of confu-
sion, fear and frustration, I have been
thinking a lot about the role I play as
part of the problem.
I keep reading that those of
us who are white need to face
our own white supremacy.
And even though I am con-
fident that I’m not a white
supremacist, I have tried to be
brutally honest with myself:
How am I making this worse?
When I moved to Detroit
Allison Zeff
two and a half years ago, it
was immediately clear that
the playing field is not level
for the people of color living
in this city. There is an unfairness that is
structural, a disadvantage that is woven
into the fabric our communities that
existed long before I arrived.
Through grassroots organizing with
Detroit Jews for Justice, I have begun to
unpack some of the ways I can work to
stop unconscious contributions to the
racial inequity that riddles the Detroit
Metropolitan area. One part of the prob-
lem I never before considered was this:
how I dispose of my trash.
At the intersection of I-94 and I-75, on
the residential near east side of Detroit,
stands the world’s largest municipal
trash incinerator. If you’re driving that
way, it’s hard to miss; but what you
won’t see is the nitrogen-oxide, sulphur-
dioxide, carbon-monoxide, lead and
particulate matter the incinerator emits
into the atmosphere. These substances
are toxic to human health and are par-
ticularly risky to the health of children.

And we’re not talking about a small
number of people being affected. Within
one mile of the incinerator, there are
7,280 residents, including 1,544 children.
According to a 2013 study by the
state of Michigan, children in
Detroit are being hospitalized
for asthma at a rate almost three
times greater than in the rest of
the state. In the last two years,
“Detroit Renewable Power” (Don’t
be fooled by the incinerator’s
new name as of 2010. Nice name
or not, it’s a toxic facility.) has
violated the Clean Air Act close
to 400 times and the Michigan
Department of Environmental
Quality has reacted to only six of
these violations with fines equiva-
lent to a slap on the wrist.
The fact is, if you live in the region,
odds are good that your trash is being
schlepped to Detroi and burned in a
giant incinerator. Poor communities
of color are being forced to breathe in
the toxins produced an d the state isn’t
doing anything substantive to stop it.
This, I’ve learned, is a textbook case
of environmental racism: We dump
our trash and get to forget about it.
Communities downwind of the incinera-
tor, who often do not have the resources
to get up and move, are not so lucky. We
want to believe that pollution affects all
of us equally. This, unfortunately, is not
the case.
So, what do we do? We have all felt a
call to action in recent months. We want
to do the anti-racist, anti-fascist work
that is needed in this political moment.
We want to dismantle the institutional
racism that we became a part of with-

Contributing Writers:
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Burstyn, Suzanne Chessler, Annabel Cohen, Don
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Ingber, Allison Jacobs, Barbara Lewis, Jennifer
Lovy, Rabbi Jason Miller, Alan Muskovitz,
David Sachs, Karen Schwartz, Robin Schwartz,
Steve Stein, Joyce Wiswell

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out our consent. If you’re a Detroit
resident, it’s time to put pressure on
Mayor Mike Duggan. He recently made
a commitment to the environment by
signing on to the U.S. Conference of
Mayors Climate Protection Agreement.
Yet he allows Metro Detroit’s trash to
be burned in the center of the city, in
a manner that repeatedly violates the
Clean Air Act. As Detroiters, it is our
responsibility to call Duggan’s office and
let him know that ending the city’s con-
tract with the incinerator is a basic pre-
requisite to making Detroit a greener,
healthier city.
If you live outside of the city, there
are a few things you can do: First, find
out where your trash is going. You might
be surprised to find that despite a con-
siderable distance from Detroit, your
trash is still being burned there. Contact
your local government and let them
know that this is an assault on justice.
Tell them you wouldn’t want your chil-
dren to breathe in these toxins, and the
children of Detroit deserve the same.

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In the meantime, carefully consider
what you put in your trash. Remove
all plastic and metal to be recycled.
Burning plastic creates extremely toxic
fumes in the air, and Detroit Renewable
Power will remove any metal and
sell it. Don’t give them that money.
Composting is another way to lighten
our personal burden on the system.
Look into community gardens that will
accept your compost or consider invest-
ing in a compost set up in your own
yard. It will do wonders for your plants
and will cut down on your trash going
to the incinerator.
There is so much going on that needs
our attention in the realm of racial justice
that we sometimes feel like we need to
put the environment aside. The fact is,
environmental justice is racial justice.
This is how we take a step toward con-
fronting our white supremacy and making
this whole region more conscious of it. •

Allison Zeff is an elementary music teacher,
Hamtramck resident and active leader with Detroit
Jews for Justice and If Not Now Detroit.

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October 12 • 2017

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