Word: toxicants
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Cambridge resident Earl Lafontant, of the Haitian, advocacy group Club CIBAO, spoke about the problem of toxic dumping in Haiti and other foreign countries. He said that the U.S. had transformed the small Caribbean nation into "a dumping ground for foreign toxic waste" in recent years...
Still, some undergraduates who have found jobs say they haven't noticed the panic that has beseiged some of their classmates. Lawrence C.C. Cheung '94 will be a summer employee of New Jersey PIRG, a group that campaigns to save the environment. He will be working full-time studying toxic waste issues...
...people of Mexico City call it nata, or scum. It is the sickly brown cloud that stubbornly hangs over the megalopolis, home to 23 million people. Composed primarily of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, the smog has made the winter of 1991 the most toxic in Mexico City history, triggering a 16% to 20% jump in the incidence of respiratory infections, nosebleeds and emphysema. Since September, the city has enjoyed only six days in which noxious gases did not exceed danger levels. "The atmosphere has no time to recuperate," says Homero Aridjis, president of the Group...
Curbing the toxic cloud does not come cheap. The oil facility's shutdown will cost $500 million, put more than 5,000 people out of work, and require Mexico to import, at least temporarily, some refined petroleum. But even this dramatic move represents only a beginning. Three-quarters of Mexico City's air pollution comes from the capital's antiquated fleet of 15,000 smoke-belching buses, 40,000 taxis and almost 3 million automobiles. Already the government has revamped 3,500 buses with new, less polluting engines. Last week President Salinas announced a $1.3 million program to replace outmoded...
...pall causes gagging and choking, and there have been reports of respiratory problems from as far away as Bahrain. Eventually some of the toxic by-products will enter the food chain and work their way up, a phenomenon dubbed petroleum poisoning. "I think the whole region is in for a bath of carcinogenic, mutagenic and possibly teratogenic chemicals," says Peter Montague of Greenpeace, referring to compounds that cause cancer, mutations and congenital deformities...