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ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE: Indigenous & Third World Rights

© Linda Little

In my third article on environmental injustice I will be looking at concrete examples of such injustice as they apply to indigenous people within North America and third world countries. The main thing to notice however, when you have read both this and last weeks article is that environmental justice is about powerful groups making sure that a disproportionate amount of environmental problems effect those with the least power. In last weeks article it was minority groups and migrants were effected, this time it is the indigenous tribes and third world countries. Being a white citizen of a first world country, I feel particularly badly about the idea of allowing other people to accept the problems caused by my own lifestyle and I hope that other readers in my position will feel likewise.

PVC The Poisonous Plastic

This issue was brought to my notice by the Indigenous Environmental Network, a site produced by indigenous people for indigenous people. Persistent Organic Pollutants or POPs create adverse effects on both habitat and wildlife. One of these POPs is dioxin, something of which you may well have heard. One of the largest, if not the largest source of dioxin is PVC. For those who would like to know more about the damage caused by PVC, please check out PVC The Poisonous Plastic a Greenpeace report.

As I said the IEN is a site by indigenous people for indigenous people, so on this site they talk to their own people and tell them not to use or buy PVC because it is killing mother earth. I think, however, that the people who really need to hear this are not necessarily Native Americans and Inuits.

What can you do to help?

1. Avoid products which are called vinyl or PVC, marked with a V or is marked with the recycling label with a 3 inside it.
2. Try to avoid plastic containers where possible, but if you have to use plastic, try to make it polythene (recycle label with 1 or 2 inside it), polypropylene (recycle label marked with a 4) or PET (recycle label marked with a 5)
3. Avoid burning any vinyl or PVC trash and discourage other people from doing so.
4. Write to your supermarket asking what they are doing about phasing out PVC containers.
5. Write to your political representative asking him or her to raise the issue.
6. Support POPs campaigns like the one run by Greenpeace or www.stoppops.org/

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