THE DOING MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
Semia Gharbi led a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia, resulting in the return of 6,000 tons of illegally exported household waste back to Italy, its country of origin, in February 2022. The EU has now tightened its rules for waste shipments abroad.
Alarmed by the pollution produced by the Konkola Copper Mines operation in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia, Chilekwa Mumba organized a lawsuit to hold the mine’s parent company, Vedanta Resources, responsible. Chilekwa’s victory in the UK Supreme Court set a legal precedent—it was the first time an English court ruled that a British company could be held liable for the environmental damage caused by subsidiary-run operations in another country.
Nalleli Cobo led a coalition to permanently shut down a toxic oil-drilling site in her community at the age of 19. She and her community went on to push the city of Los Angeles to ban new oil exploration and phase out existing sites.
In September 2019, Sharon Lavigne, a special education teacher turned environmental justice advocate, successfully stopped the construction of a US$1.25 billion plastics manufacturing plant alongside the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, Louisiana.
LeeAnne Walters led a citizens’ movement that tested the tap water in Flint, Michigan, and exposed the Flint water crisis.
Born and raised in a family of community activists, mark! Lopez pushed government officials to provide comprehensive lead testing and cleanup of East Los Angeles homes contaminated by a battery smelter that had been operating on temporary pollution permits for over three decades.
In a community whose environmental rights had long been sidelined to make room for heavy industry, Destiny Watford inspired residents of a Baltimore neighborhood to defeat plans to build the nation’s largest incinerator less than a mile away from her high school.
After learning her own breast milk was making her baby sick—and realizing her child wasn’t the only one suffering from lead poisoning—Phyllis Omido galvanized the community in Mombasa to shut down the smelter that was exposing people to dangerous chemicals.
Kimberly Wasserman led local residents in a successful campaign to shut down two of the country’s oldest and dirtiest coal plants—and is now transforming Chicago’s old industrial sites into parks and multiuse spaces.
Hilton Kelley is a leading figure in the battle for environmental justice on the Texas Gulf Coast, as he fights for communities living in the shadow of polluting industries.
