The Toxic Avengers – Details, episodes & analysis

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

For this episode, I spoke with Jacqueline Warren, who worked as an attorney with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) from 1973 to 1991. She was one of the leading toxics advocates in Washington DC when most of the major federal toxics laws, including the Safe Drinking Water Act, Superfund and the Toxic Substances Control Act, were enacted.

During her years at EDF and NRDC, Jackie was involved in the development, implementation and enforcement of laws related to drinking water, pesticides and toxic chemicals in products. She was a triple threat to the chemical industry, working to pass strong legislation, pressing EPA to adopt protective health standards, and litigating against EPA and the industry when they failed to follow the law. 

Among her many accomplishments was a successful lawsuit overturning EPA’s attempt to exempt most uses of toxic PCBs from a ban enacted by Congress, and halting the use of several widely used pesticides that were dangerous to public health.

Our conversation traced the path which led to her starting a career in environmental law, looked at some of the key areas of her work, and discussed what it takes to win meaningful protections from toxic chemicals.

One technical note, there were some connectivity problems during our interview that had an occasional minor effect on the audio quality of the recording.

Here is a clip of Jackie testifying at a hearing on the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) in 1988, in which she discusses PCBs, asbestos, and the need for more toxicity testing of chemicals, and a more protective health standard in the law, starting at 21:53 on the recording.

You can read a recent story by Pro Publica on the ongoing health risks posed by PCBs here.

For ongoing issues with inadequate regulation of pesticides by the EPA, you can read an article by recent Toxic Avengers guest Sharon Lerner here.

For this episode,

I spoke with Sharon Lerner, investigative reporter for The Intercept, whose groundbreaking work has included in-depth writing on a host of chemical-related issues including PFAS, pesticides, plastic waste, and environmental justice.

We began our conversation discussing her recent stories on systemic problems within the Environmental Protection Agency’s  Toxics office, including career managers overriding the findings of agency scientists that chemicals under review pose a health risk to the public. 

We then traced the path of her career, work methods, and areas of interest, that have led to becoming perhaps the most important environmental journalist in the country.

For the past three decades, Jose Bravo has spent his life working to improve the health and lives of communities across the country and around the world, using every available tool of advocacy including door-to-door education, building diverse coalitions, corporate-focused consumer campaigns, negotiation, litigation and direct action.  He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Just Transition Alliance, and National Coordinator of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions.

I spoke with Jose in August. During our conversation, we discussed the work of the Campaign for Healthier Solutions to compel Dollar stores to eliminate the use of toxic chemicals in their products and provide customers with healthier locally grown food options in intentionally food-deprived areas; as well as the genesis and early campaigns of the Just Transition Alliance. 

Jose also talked about the lives of his parents as farmworkers, his childhood growing up in and around San Diego, and his early years of student activism and organizing including countering the anti-immigration forces in the 1980s. This work led to his joining the Environmental Health Coalition and working on their Toxic Free Neighborhoods project in Barrio Logan including the campaign to stop the pollution of surrounding areas with methyl bromide from the Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal.  Jose also attended the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in Washington DC in October 1991.

Jose describes the life cycle of chemicals from production, to use and disposal – all of which contribute to pollution and health impacts in overburdened communities; and the ways that non-pollution factors including lack of health care, inadequate housing, and police brutality contribute to environmental injustice.  In the course of our conversation, Jose referenced two of his friends and colleagues, Luke Cole, co-founder of the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, and Cecil Corbin-Mark, Deputy Director of WE ACT, both tremendously important environmental justice leaders.

Throughout his career of teaching, writing and organizing, Ken Geiser has been one of the most important theoreticians of the Toxics movement, as well as a Johnny Appleseed, having a hand in the creation, development and sustenance of more than two dozen organizations, while mentoring many other Toxic Avengers.

Among many accomplishments, Ken was one of the authors of the landmark Toxics Use Reduction Act in Massachusetts. Ken served as the Director of the Toxics Use Reduction Institute from 1990 to 2003 and in 2001 published his first book, “Materials Matter,” while teaching as a professor of Work Environment at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

I spoke with Ken from his farmhouse in Maine.

In the interview, Ken offers a couple of stage-setting stories about his childhood in Scottsdale, Arizona and early experiences as an undergrad studying architecture at U.C. Berkeley. He describes the parallel paths of his graduate studies at MIT and his work organizing to protect neighborhoods from highway projects and waste dumps, to the creation of the National Toxics Campaign with John O’Connor.

Key events discussed in Ken’s evolution of understanding and engagement in the Toxics movement include the contaminated drinking water in Woburn, Massachusetts, the fight over a PCB dump in Warren County, North Carolina, and the death of thousands caused by the gas leak from the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India.

Ken describes the process leading to the passage of the Toxics Use Reduction Act in 1989, and his work following the law’s enactment, including his leadership of the Toxic Use Reduction Institute (TURI). He recounts some of his extensive work with colleagues and allies across the country, building organizations to tackle various aspects of the Toxic Chemicals problem.

Dr. Linda Birnbaum is a "rock star" in the world of environmental health, a groundbreaking scientist who has devoted her career to studying the potential health impacts of toxic chemicals.

We learn about Dr. Birnbaum's interest in science and notable accomplishments beginning at an early age, and trace her path of education and early career.

Dr. Birnbaum narrates her 40-year career as a leading scientist at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Toxicology Program, and Environmental Protection Agency, culminating in her serving as Director of NIEHS and the NTP. She discusses her work studying classes of chemicals including PCBs, dioxins, brominated flame retardants and PFAS.

In the first episode of the Toxic Avengers podcast, we interview Lois Gibbs, who led the successful fight for community relocation from the poisoned neighborhood of Love Canal in Niagara Falls, New York. For the past 40 years, she has been the Director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, helping communities facing similar threats to their health from toxic chemicals.

www.https://chej.org/

The interview, taped in February, begins discussing Lois' sabbatical and how she separates her work and non-work lives. We discuss how the pandemic has affected CHEJ's advocacy.

Lois outlines two of CHEJ's current projects for ensuring protection for communities overburdened with pollution, and discusses the different perspectives of national environmental groups and local community organizers.

She also provides insight into how CHEJ helps individual communities organize their opposition to toxic threats including incinerators, oil refineries and chemical plants, and the creative process that CHEJ's interns use to develop new policies and strategies.

Welcome to Episode 0 of the Toxic Avengers podcast. For this introductory episode I discuss the problem of our continuous exposure to toxic chemicals, in our air, our water, our food, in all kinds of consumer products, at home and in the workplace.

I describe the purpose and format of the podcast, interviewing people who work to attain health protections, nationally, in the states, and in local communities. We will learn about their lives -- how they came to their work -- and what it is that keeps them committed to pursuing the goals of environmental health and justice.

Learning about each of our guests will provide listeners with a greater understanding and awareness of how and where exposure to toxic chemicals occurs, their potential health effects, and the many ways that the system could protect us, but frequently fails to do so.

What people hear and learn from the podcast, may inspire them to get involved, joining the league of Toxic Avengers working to make a better, safer, healthier world.

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.