Environmental Activism in North Carolina
Environmental Activism is not all it’s cracked up to be. Our trash has to travel over 90 miles to reach its final destination of the Sampson County Landfill. The fault? Environmental activists who fought for change, only taking themselves into consideration. This is the danger of trusting environmental activists.
Built in 1972, the Orange County disposal site was located on Eubanks rd., near historically black neighborhoods where the inhabitants had to deal with “vermin, noise, and unpleasant smells”. Additionally, the site was improperly lined and was loosely regulated. They were promised that it would close after 10 years. After four decades, in 2013, the landfill was shut down with the help of environmental activists and people who were fighting for justice for the people who lived near the site.
Now, Orange County’s trash, along with 43 other counties, goes to the GFL Sampson County Landfill. The shutting down of this landfill created a plethora of problems and intensified the pre-existing issues that Sampson County already had. When we throw out our trash, we don’t have any regard for what happens after it is put in the trash bin. Most of the time, the consumer is not the one that feels the direct effects of what they discard. However, for people who live in Sampson County or near the waste center, feel many of the problems created by the consumer. For example, vultures bring nasty bits of waste to the roofs of people who live near the site which forces them to have to replace their roofing every few years (Mr. Mundy at the SusCom and RAISE meeting).
Most importantly, these environmental activists who got the Orange County landfill moved, moved it to a place that does not have enough people fighting for their rights and the regulation of the landfill.
Thankfully, there are organizations who care and are working towards equitable sustainability for everyone. Groups like the Environmental Justice Community Action Network (EJCAN) recently led students from Durham Academy on a trip to the Sampson County landfill. On this trip, students explored the history of Sampson County, met with residents, and viewed the culture of the people and architecture. Taylor Winstead wrote very poignantly in her blog post, “I knew that income inequality, racism, and the rural urban divide was deeply connected to this situation, but what I didn’t know was that all of these companies’ potential impacts on the town are reviewed separately and approved in isolation. In other words, approval for the landfill was based on simply measuring the impact of the landfill on the town, not the landfill and hog and poultry farms as a whole. In government everything is isolated, but in lived experience, everything is connected.” She makes a strong argument about how nothing is ever isolated in real life. There should be more environmental activists that remember and embody this sentiment in order for us to create a more just and sustainable world.
How can we make this matter to a bigger group of people? Would we be more motivated to find another method for waste if it had to stay in our own community? I propose we run an experiment at Durham Academy. We should remove all of the waste bins for a week. Instead of throwing things away, we would put all of our trash in the quad and collect it for an entire week. I believe that this physical representation would be a powerful method of showing people how much trash they truly consume. The results of this could make people care about Extended Producer Responsibility, in which the responsibility is placed on the producer of the product. People would be able to visually see the amount of trash created in a week and then demand better from the top contributors (for example, chip bags or expo markers).
However, Durham Academy is already taking action for the environment and encouraging the next generation to be sustainable habitants of this world. Every day, students have the option to make smarter decisions when it comes to sustainability: from the bathroom to their food waste, they can compost on every campus, any time. For education on composting and recycling at the Lower and Middle School, students are becoming more engaged with the future of sustainability and recognizing where they can make green choices. At the Upper School, students had the opportunity to become environmental activists at last years’ Sustain-In. This event allowed people across all divisions (students k-12, alumni, and faculty) to create proposals and learn about our carbon emissions, as provided by Green Places. Students can participate in courses like Biodiversity in Action to learn more about the process of rewilding a space or Science, Society, and Social Justice to learn about the intersectionality of every subject taught in school. This is a start, and more is yet to come in regards to a sustainABLE Durham Academy…
Sources:
Education, Taylor Winstead in, and Solving Solid Waste. “Sampson County: Bread Basket and Dumping Ground of NC.” Living Sustainably, 1 Dec. 2023, livingsustainably.sites.da.org/2023/12/01/sampson-county-bread-basket-and-dumping-ground-of-nc/#more-1239. Accessed 19 Dec. 2023.
Staff. “Ceremony Formally Marks OC Landfill Shutdown.” Chapelboro.com, 29 June 2013, https://chapelboro.com/news/news-around-town/ceremony-formally-marks-orange-county-landfill-shutdown. Accessed 18 December 2023.
“Solid Waste To Be Sent to Durham When Landfill Closes.” The Daily Tar Heel, -, https://www.dailytarheel.com/article/2013/03/51492b556e48c. Accessed 18 December 2023.
This was written as a series of blog posts for a course at school. This is the 2nd out of 4.
