Plastic pollution is an environmental injustice to vulnerable communities – new report
Nairobi, 30 March 2021 — Plastic pollution disproportionately affects marginalized communities and communities living in close proximity to plastic production and waste sites, constituting an environmental injustice, according to a new report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and environmental justice non-governmental organisation, Azul. The report,
Neglected: Environmental Justice Impacts of Plastic Pollution, calls for the recognition of communities affected by plastic waste and their inclusion in local decision making.
It details cases of environmental injustice – from deforestation and displacement of Indigenous Peoples to make way for oil extraction and the contamination of potable water by fracking fluids and waste water in the US and Sudan, to health problems among predominantly African American communities living near oil refineries in the US’s Gulf of Mexico, and the occupational hazards of about two million waste pickers in India, among many others.