Cement Plants Gone Green?
| September 15, 2010 | Posted by Lisa Sharp under Uncategorized |
The cement plant located in my town has always bothered me. I have always known it was polluting my town, but when I did research on the plant for a blog about the links to cancer I was in tears. Cancer causing pollutants are being dumped all over my small town.
Most people say that the highly effected areas for the pollution from these plants is five miles. Within 1 mile or less of the plant are two schools, the Boys and Girls Club, and countless houses. I live about 2.5 miles from the plant and spent part of my childhood around 0.7 miles from the plant.
My problems with the cement keep increasing, now not only are they polluting my city they are trying to claim they are going green. The company as a world wide company has been launching green PR campaigns across the US. In my own town they sponsor a youth green team.
This is true but sadly sponsoring small groups like this has nothing to do with the bigger picture. When the plants continue to dump toxic chemicals on our planet and not even follow current laws and fight stronger laws, how can this small act help?
I don’t blame groups like local one for taking this offer from the cement plant. I have heard their speech about how they are being green, if you don’t know better it sounds great. One of their claims is that they recycle tires, yet really they are burning them for fuel which is where a lot of the toxins are coming from.
Also groups like this need money and they have a lot of that. They are using groups like this for it’s own PR and that is wrong!
Just a couple of days ago I got a phone call from the plant, to be honest this put fear in my heart for a minute. I was thinking “oh no someone from the plant read my blog and is pissed.” I quickly remembered why I was getting this phone call. Some people from the plant came to a meeting for the recycling coalition I’m a member of and was trying to get people to join a new green group formed by the local chamber of commerce and chaired by the plant.
After much soul searching I had already decided I could not be apart of a group that was being used by the plant as a way to look better than they are. I was hoping to go into details about this when asked but ironically I was having trouble with asthma and was unable to start a big debate and just said I wouldn’t be about to join. Hopefully a time for me to give my reason will come up.
We must stop letting these companies pollute our bodies and our planet. We must tell them they HAVE to clean up or get out. Yes we need cement at the moment but at what price are we willing to get that cement?
Sources:
EPA Enforcement & Compliance History Online (ECHO)
United States National Library of Medicine TOXMAP
TOXNET
