![]() ![]() The Southeast Side is a fenceline community – a term used to describe neighborhoods that are situated next to polluting industries or facilities. ![]() “If is not good enough for the North Side,” said Gina Ramirez, referring to the area where RMG previously operated General Iron, “then it’s not good enough for the South Side.” And yet, organizers say local officials have characterized their campaign to stop RMG from operating in their neighborhood as making a mountain out of a molehill. In August 2020, the city released an air quality report stating that the South and West sides are “over-burdened” by “high concentrations of industry”. The Southeast Side of Chicago is the most industrial area of the city, home to businesses that dump more than a million pounds of toxins into the air every year. Steve Joseph, the head of RMG, said in an op-ed that the machinery at Southside Recycling “will be enclosed and removed from public view” and “almost nothing” about it “resembles General Iron”. Stark joined the hunger strike last week. If Southside Recycling opens, that particulate matter “will be inhaled through the noses, throats and lungs of my students”, said Chuck Stark, a science teacher at George Washington high school, which is located about a half mile from the Southside Recycling construction site. ![]() The new recycling plant will house a metal shredder, which uses machinery known to produce hazardous dust particles that can cause severe heart and lung problems. In an effort to stop the city from granting RMG its final permit, community activists have now announced a hunger strike. In December, a recycling company called Reserve Management Group (RMG) closed a century-old metal scrapyard in an affluent, white part of town after numerous environmental violations, and now the company is close to opening a new metal recycling plant in Chicago’s Southeast Side, where many black and brown people live. Now Colón, 17, worries the health problems she and her community face are about to get worse. ![]()
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