The Toxic Avengers

In Part Four we pick up our conversation about recycling e-waste, including the genesis of EPR -- Extended Producer Responsibility -- and the limits of a “bottle bill” approach to recycling e-waste. 

We discuss the Coalition’s collaboration with the Basel Action Network, and the current state of e-waste recycling, including certification guidelines and the influence of the European Union’s regulation of e-waste under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive. 

We talk about the circumstances that led to the Campaign for Responsible Technology expanding their work to be international, now the ICRT.  Ted then tells a brief story about his interaction with Steve Jobs, and the evolution of Apple’s response to the e-waste issue. 

We discuss the outsourcing of hazards from electronic manufacturing, and the book written in conjunction with the Coalition’s anniversary, Challenging the Chip.

We discuss the ongoing lack of transparency on worker and reproductive hazards in the electronics industry, and implementation of the CHIPS Act.

We end with Ted’s reflections on founding and running a public interest organization, and his thoughts on the next generation of activists.

It was a real honor to speak with Ted Smith about his life and career of activism.  He was very generous with his time, enough to cover four episodes of the podcast.  For people wanting to learn more, be sure to read this oral history interview of Ted conducted in 2000.

In part three of our interview, we begin speaking about the train derailment and release of vinyl chloride in East Palestine Ohio that occurred in February.  We discuss the difficulty of retaining institutional memory of toxic accidents and other incidents, and what that could mean for communities where new micro chip plants may be built under the CHIPs Act.

We talk about the long history of attempting to regulate the use of hazardous toxic solvents like TCE, at the local, state and federal levels and the battles with companies over the extent of their cleanups of Superfund sites. 

We then discuss the Silicon Valley Toxic coalition’s partnering with environmental justice organizations in the southwest, as chip plants began to move to New Mexico, Arizona and Texas including creating the Electronics Industry Good Neighbor Campaign with the Southwest Organizing Project, Tonatierra, and PODER.  

We also begin a discussion on the creation of the Campaign for Responsible Technology and the growth of their work to address e-waste, including the development of the Electronic Takeback Campaign and a campaign targeting Dell Computers.  Finally, we discuss the international implications of the e-waste work.

 Resources:

Here are some of the news stories, books and reports that are referenced in this episode:

A story by Eric Lipton in the New York Times re the Biden administration’s implementation of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), March 16, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/16/us/politics/toxic-chemicals-biden-epa.html?searchResultPosition=4

The book written jointly by SVTC, SWOP, PODER and Tonatierra.

Sacred Waters: Life-Blood of Mother Earth (1997)

A report by Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition

Corporate Strategies for Electronics Recycling: a Tale of Two Systems  (2003)

A report produced by SVTC and the Basel Action Network

Exporting Harm: The High-tech Trashing of Asia (2002)

See also the International Campaign for Responsible Technology’s (ICRTs) website

And the Basel Action Network’s website

In this episode, we have Part Two of my interview with Ted Smith, Founder and Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

We begin part two talking about the birth of Silicon Valley, the perception of tech as a “clean” industry, and the reality of workplace health risks.  We then talk about the beginnings of the Coalition, spurred by the discovery of toxic solvents leaking into the area’s groundwater from the Fairchild Semiconductor plant, and the early activism of Lorraine Ross, which ultimately led to the designation of 29 Superfund sites in Silicon Valley.

We discuss the role of firefighters, and the plumbers union, along with the Coalition, in developing local laws on the handling of hazardous materials, and public right to know of the storage of hazardous chemicals, which became models for state and federal laws.

We cover some of the history of the 1986 amendments to the Superfund law, including the role of the National Toxics Coalition, the creation of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), and the importance of Technical Assistance Grants (TAGs) for citizens fighting for cleanups of contaminated waste sites in their communities.

In this episode, we have Part One of my interview with Ted Smith, Founder and Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.  

For more than forty years, Ted has worked to clean up the extensive pollution caused by manufacturers of semi-conductors in Silicon Valley, which contains the most Superfund sites in the country.  In the wake of discovery of contaminated drinking water aquifers, the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition successfully passed local ordinances on hazardous materials, and public right to know, which became models for state and federal laws, including the Toxics Release Inventory.  

The Coalition partnered with Environmental Justice groups in the Southwest to address the environmental and health challenges posed by the spread of the semi-conductor industry into Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Ted’s work, along with his wife, the renowned occupational health lawyer Amanda Hawes, has continued to expand to the international level, addressing the pollution and health harms to workers and communities across the globe. He co-founded the International Campaign for Responsible Technology and co-edited the book “Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry.”

We began our conversation discussing the recently enacted federal legislation known as the CHIPs Act, which provides more than $50 billion dollars to promote the on-shoring of semiconductor production to the United States.  We discuss the absence of provisions in the law to ensure that new communities aren’t exposed to and harmed by pollution from the new semi-conductor plants in the U.S.

We then discuss the early part of Ted’s life, including his experiences at Wesleyan University, his time spent in Washington DC as a volunteer for the anti-poverty program Volunteers in Service to America or (VISTA). Ted describes his experiences after moving to California to attend law school at Stanford, and his work supporting cannery workers, which set the stage for his decades of toxics advocacy.

Ted Smith is both a pioneer and a giant in the anti-toxics movement. It was an honor to discuss his life and career, and I’m looking forward to sharing our conversation with you.

Here’s Part One of my interview with Ted Smith recorded last December.

$52 billion for chips, plus $200 billion for science research https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/27/us/politics/senate-chips-china.html?searchResultPosition=2

NYT re Taiwanese building in Phoenix  -- https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/06/technology/tsmc-chips-factory-phoenix.html?searchResultPosition=1

The court decision in a case Ted Smith brought on behalf of farmworkers early in his career.

Mandujano v. Basic Vegetables https://openjurist.org/541/f2d/832/mandujano-v-basic-vegetable-products-inc

In this episode, we have Part Two of my interview with Pamela Miller, Founder and Executive Director of Alaska Community Action on Toxics, also known as ACAT.

We pick up our conversation as Pam describes the work that initially brought her to the west coast, from Florida, including her work for Washington state’s Department of Ecology to establish a National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Washington and Oregon. 

We discuss her work with Greenpeace, and the environmental and health impacts of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, as well as the less well-remembered Nestucca spill in 1988.

Pam talks about the process of starting ACAT, and its early work researching the leakage of radioactive material from nuclear testing under Amchitka Island in the 1960s and 70s.

Finally, we discuss Pam’s work as Co-Chair of the International

Pollutants Elimination Network, IPEN, to implement the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (The POPs Treaty), and enact global bans of persistent chemicals including the pesticides lindane and endosulfan and the plastics additive UV238.

Here are links to the two reports on the impacts of underground nuclear testing in Alaska, that Pamela discusses in the interview:

 Nuclear Flashback report: https://www.akaction.org/publications/nuclear-flashback-the-return-to-amchitka/

Nuclear Flashback Part two: https://www.akaction.org/publications/nuclear-flashback-part-ii-the-threat-of-the-u-s-nuclear-complex/

This is Part One of my interview with Pamela Miller, Founder and Executive Director of Alaska Community Action on Toxics, also known as ACAT.

Since starting ACAT in 1997, Pamela has worked in support of indigenous communities in Alaska seeking cleanup of polluted, military, industrial, and resource extraction sites. 

At the same time, Pam has long been a leader engaged in the creation and implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, also known as the POPs Treaty.

Pamela is the Co-Chair of the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN). The treaty has led to global bans on chemicals and chemical classes including Endosulfan, short-chain chlorinated parrafins and Lindane.

We began our conversation with ACAT’s current work to address PFAS contamination throughout Alaska, the potential use of micronuclear reactors for mining sites, and the ongoing health threat posed by PCBs and other toxic chemicals from abandoned military sites on St. Lawrence Island. 

We discuss some of Pam’s recent work on the POPs treaty, the health impacts on indigenous communities of the global transport of persistent toxic chemicals to the Arctic, and the critical role of community research in advocating for cleanup and environmental justice for indigenous people.

We then talk about Pam’s childhood, growing up in Dover, Ohio, and how the nearby presence of Dover Chemical affected her family, and influenced her career path. We discuss her education, including making a choice whether to focus on science or music, and learn about her post-college career working as a marine biologist, prior to moving out West.

Pamela’s breadth of knowledge and experience are remarkable, and her steadfast commitment to addressing toxic pollution and obtaining environmental justice for the indigenous people of Alaska is inspiring.

We're back!

For this episode, we have Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Mark Mitchell, founder of the Hartford Environmental Justice Network, later renamed the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice, (CCEJ). 

In Part 2 we discuss Dr. Mitchell’s unhappy tenure as the Health Director for the city of Hartford Connecticut, and the systemic and institutional racism that led to his founding of CCEJ.

We talk about CCEJ’s work against the disproportionate placement of power plants and incinerators in the Connecticut cities with majorities of people of color.

We also discuss the growing power and influence of CCEJ in Connecticut; and the transformational impact of the work for many of CCEJ’s members. 

Hear more of Dr. Mitchell's story in Episode 9.

And here is an essay he wrote in 2020 for the journal Daedalus: “Racism as a Motivator for Environmental Justice”

This is Part One of my interview with Dr. Mark Mitchell, founder of the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice (CCEJ). A medical doctor, with a Masters in Public Health, he is a long-time toxics and public health advocate. 

Dr. Mitchell is currently working at George Mason University’s Center for Climate Change Communication, serving as the Director of State Affairs for the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, and Director of the Climate and Health Equity Fellowship Program.

He previously served as the Deputy Director of the Kansas City Missouri Health Department for six years, and Director of the Hartford Health Department in Hartford Connecticut for four years, before leaving to start the Hartford Environmental Justice Network, later renamed the Connecticut Coalition for Environmental Justice.

In the first part of our interview, Mark discusses his current work on climate, health and environmental justice, including educating and organizing medical health professionals, and explains his pneumonic for the health effects of climate change.

He then describes his childhood growing up in St. Louis Missouri, and how the racism he experienced from an early age formed the path he took to become a doctor with a focus on the preventative side of medical practice, and environmental stressors of health.  

Mark then describes some of his experiences while getting his Masters in Public Health from John’s Hopkins University in Baltimore, and his early work opposing the influence of the tobacco industry.

Mark is a great storyteller, with a million stories to tell, and it was both a pleasure and an honor to speak with him.   

For more on Dr. Mitchell’s life story, here is an essay he wrote in 2020 for the journal Daedalus: “Racism as a Motivator for Environmental Justice”

Here is his 1984 memo to the Executive Director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation re the CBCF’s promotion of smoking: https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=yjmj0143

For this episode, we have Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Anna Reade, scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 

We continue our discussion of her work focused on the large and highly persistent class of chemicals known as PFAS. 

We talk about their widespread use in many products, and their potential impacts on vulnerable populations and environmental justice. 

 Dr. Reade also describes her work developing a groundbreaking database of scientific studies on the health effects of PFAS; and reflects on her role as a scientist advocating for public health protections from toxic chemicals.

To learn more about PFAS, listen to our Episode 5 interview with Sharon Lerner, Investigative Reporter for The Intercept and read her series The Teflon Toxin.

In this episode, I interview Dr. Anna Reade, PFAS scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

In Part 1 of this two-part interview, we discuss her participation on a panel with several chemical industry representatives and the flawed and misleading arguments they made to oppose regulating PFAS chemicals as a class.

Dr. Reade discusses her family and growing up in a small town near Death Valley, her educational path, including a long break before graduate school and a Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the University of California, San Francisco. She explains how and why she was drawn to advocacy for environmental health and joining NRDC as a PFAS scientist. She then covers some of the basic issues and concerns with PFAS (more in Part 2).

Some of Dr. Reade's work can be found here: https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/pfas-pollution-widespread-disadvantaged-communities

and here:

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/big-reveal-hundreds-health-studies-next-gen-pfas

and here:

https://www.nrdc.org/experts/anna-reade/scientific-basis-managing-pfas-chemical-class

During the interview, we briefly discuss a chart which can be found on page 8 (page 11 of the pdf) of this report:

https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/pfas-textile-report-202105.pdf