INSIGHT: Plastic Pollution Is an Environmental Justice Issue
By Sarah Morath | 7/14/20 | Bloomberg Law
Black people and other individuals of color are disproportionately affected by environmental harms like plastic pollution. Sarah J. Morath, an associate professor at Wake Forest University School of Law, argues Congress can address these inequities by enacting the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act.
Recent conversations on social media and in print have highlighted institutional racism that exists in government policies and practices involving education, housing, employment, and the environment.
In a recent Washington Post opinion piece, Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson discussed the disproportionate impacts people of color experience from environmental harms such as storms, heatwaves, and pollution. She argues that White people who care about maintaining a habitable planet need to be “actively anti-racist” and need to understand that the racial inequality crisis is intertwined with the climate crisis.
Like the climate crisis, the plastic crisis is also intertwined with racial inequalities. Who suffers most from harms associated with plastic production and disposal? Communities with more people of color, both in the U.S. and abroad. A consequence of environmental racism, plastic pollution requires an environmental justice response.
Waiving environmental reviews and fast-tracking infrastructure projects through executive orders, like the president did recently, will only perpetuate environmental racism. Instead, Congress should actively address existing environmental inequities through codifying environmental justice into environmental laws. Enacting the Break Free from Plastic Pollution Act is one way to start.
