Protestors have gone on a hunger strike against environmental discrimination in the Southeast Side.
As a heavily pollutant metal recycling plant plans to move into Chicago’s Southeast Side, local activists have gone on hunger strike. Some have been on strike for four weeks to protest unsafe working conditions. Plants which employ a metal shredder have been known to release airborne particle matter that can be highly dangerous to the human respiratory system.
According to Byron Sigcho-Lopez, a local alderman, “It is immoral, it is discriminatory and we cannot allow [this plant to operate] in a pandemic when we can prevent it.” Previously, the company planning to build the plant, Reserve Management Group (RMG), had run a scrapyard in Chicago’s wealthier, predominantly-white Northern Side. This site had been shut down due to several EPA violations. RMG now plans to make a new facility with much of the same hazardous machinery in Chicago’s Southeast Side, a less affluent neighborhood home to majority black and brown people.
Moving a dangerous scrapyard from a neighborhood home to largely affluent white people to one home to largely poor black and brown people continues a pattern of environmental racism in the United States. This exposes black and brown people to more pollutants, and in this case, particles from the scrapyard which could cause damage to the heart and lungs. The plant will be built within half a mile of an elementary school and a high school. Yet this kind of environmental discrimination is not new to the Southeast Side. It is already a fenceline community (a neighborhood in close proximity to heavy industrial facilities) and is already plagued by businesses releasing approximately one million pounds of toxins into the air every year.
Of the many activists engaging in hunger strikes, most have elected only to fast for a brief period of time. Chuck Stark, Oscar Sanchez, and Breanna Bertacchi have forgone food completely until they are sure that RMG will not be moving their facility into the Southeast Side. “Teaching keeps reminding me why I’m doing this,” said Stark, a biology teacher; “It’s for the students, their current health, the health of their families, and the future of the neighborhood.” Stark teaches at George Washington High School, which is within sight of RMG’s property.
After four weeks of hunger strikes, there is a bit of hope for activists. Lori Lightfoot, the mayor of Chicago, has reached out to the EPA for guidance. As of yet, it’s unclear whether or not this means that RMG will be barred from building in the Southeast Side.
