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Every person on the planet should have the right to breathe clean air and consume safe food and water. Yet every day, the chemical industry pumps millions of pounds of toxic compounds into our air and water, and onto our land. Greenpeace has focused attention on the plight of people who are confronted daily by the deadly excesses of the big polluters in the chemical industry.
Louisiana is a polluter's paradise. It is home to some of the planet's most toxic and polluting industries. Among the worst are the facilities that manufacture the basic ingredients in vinyl, or PVC (polyvinyl chloride). Louisiana hosts more PVC plants than any other state in the U.S. The entire life-cycle of PVC is a dirty business. During its manufacture, use and disposal, PVC emits a host of poisons, including dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals known to science.
These cancer-causing poisons destroy communities. The large concentration of vinyl industries, with their very high toxic releases, and the substantial levels of dioxin found in the blood of some residents makes Louisiana a "Global Toxics Hotspot." Greenpeace's work in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley" put a face on the human suffering taking place there for the rest of the nation and the world to see. Through the tireless work of campaigners like Damu Smith, Rick Hind and Lisa Finaldi, and the poignant and powerful photographs of Les Stone, the tragic story of Louisiana's toxic legacy has been brought to life. The vinyl industries and polluting facilities in Louisiana have literally wiped entire communities off the map, like Morrisonville, Reveilletown, Sunrise and Good Hope. If future generations are going to survive and thrive, Louisiana and other states must begin an orderly and just transition from toxic industries to clean production. No child in the United States. or anywhere in the world, should have to grow up in a community where the water is too polluted to swim or fish in, where breathing the air can be hazardous to human health, and where chemical factories spew pollution into the air without any regard for life. U.S. corporate giants like Dow and DuPont routinely choose profits over people by building toxic chemical plants in the middle of communities that have little power to oppose them. Louisiana's toxic legacy doesn't stop at its border. Dioxin and other toxic chemicals travel thousands of miles from their source at a chemical facility in Cancer Alley. They then rain from the sky on distant lands, into the water supplies of communities on the other side of the globe and onto millions of unsuspecting people around the world. The issue of toxic pollution is an international crisis. Greenpeace has been working since 1994 to expose the role of the vinyl industry in contributing to global dioxin pollution. We are proud to have been able to work with Les Stone and applaud his gift for turning this crisis that the chemical industry has tried to deny, into something so visible that nobody with a sould could possibly ignore. Rave on, John Passacantando |