Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 3: The politics of wasterequirements’ for landfills, designed primarily to prevent leachate contamination ofground water but to the neglect of air pollution.The situation for hazardous waste was no better. Over time, some 33 legislative actsparcelled out authority to different government departments for some aspect ofhandling toxic and hazardous wastes. In 1990, Ball and Bredenhahn observed that“no specific and integrated regulations pertaining to the management of such wastes(had) been promulgated and consequently cradle to grave control of toxic waste (was)non-existent” [1990: 204]. They predicted that this state of affairs could lead to “somesort of disaster” and anticipated public reaction “based on sensationalism and/oremotionalism, but not facts. Distasteful as this might be to the authorities and wastemanagement professionals, it would result in the restructuring of priorities, albeit froma position of relative weakness” [206].Politicising wasteIndeed, public reaction was already being mobilised. Earthlife Africa was formedin 1988 on a radical ‘green’ agenda that brought a political understanding to theenvironment. This agenda was later taken up by the broader environmental justicemovement. Several key themes emerged: opposition to trade in toxic wastes; oppositionto incineration; the demand for adequate services in black areas; the demand for anend to dumping waste in black and poor areas; a demand for proper information onwaste and who was producing it; and a commitment to the waste hierarchy, startingwith the reduction of all waste and the elimination of toxic wastes, and followed bythe re-use or recycling of remaining waste. This agenda emerged from struggles atmultiple levels: on the ground where waste is produced or dumped and in policy atlocal, national and international levels.Earthlife took waste as its first campaign issue and was immediately confronted by aproposal, put to government by businessman Sydney Saunders, to build an incineratoron the West Coast to burn imported hazardous waste. The proposal thus linked tradein toxic waste and incineration, two issues high on the international environmentalagenda, to anti-apartheid sanctions breaking. Earthlife argued against it on thesegrounds and, in a series of public debates with Saunders, won wide public support.The campaign was also linking anti-apartheid and environmental campaignersinternationally. The political risk of the project thus escalated and it was abandoned.- 34 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation