South Africa and the Environment
F A C T S H E E T
South Africa is a prime example of the unsettling connections that exist between race, gender, poverty, and the environment. Apartheid has had and continues to have a devastating effect on black South Africans as well as the environment. The importation o
f hazardous wastes, the dumping of mercury in rivers, the strip mining of coal and uranium, the outdated methods of producing synthetic fuels, along with the rampant poverty, lack of sewage facilities and deliberate structuring of the notorious 'homelands
' present South Africa with serious environmental concerns. Post-apartheid South Africa will have to confront the inherited toxic and environmental crisis as it strives to transform and rebuild South African society.
In order to implement and maintain the racist policies of apartheid, the South African government created 'bantustans' and residential townships. Corporations were given free rein to locate their industrial sites near these areas to access a cheap supply
of labor. In addition to the hazardous working conditions, industrial plants have polluted the air, soil and water, thus poisoning the lives and environment of millions of black South Africans:
- The 'bantustans' policy has placed 87 percent of the country's population (all black) on 13 percent of the land.
- South African gold mines extract large quantities of uranium as a secondary product, thus exposing nearby black communities to cancer-causing radium and radon which commonly leak from uranium mine wastes.
- The nation's 450 mine dumps cover some 10,000 hectares and hold an estimated 20 billion tons of rocky waste.
- Data on coal mining show that from 1978 to 1983, South African coal workers were about 10 times more likely to die on the job as their counterparts in the United Kingdom.
- In 1987, 85 percent of South Africa's commercial energy was derived from coal, resulting in accelerated exploitation of coal seams through strip mining and producing some of the worst air pollution in the world.
- Assuming that energy consumption is proportionate to income level, white South Africans are the world's worst greenhouse offenders with per capita carbon emissions at 9 tons in 1987 compared to the U.S. figure of 5 tons and the world average of 1 ton.
- Between 1978 and 1983, 780 of the 3,500 workers at the Penge (Asbestos) Mines in the Eastern Transvaal had contracted asbestosis.
- In Mmafefe, a region of the Lebowa homeland, a health project report documented that 603 out of the 1724 houses in the village, 7 of the 12 schools, and many churches were made from asbestos brick and plaster.
- A 1990 health survey conducted in Merewent, Natal (a residential area surrounded by two oil refineries, an airport, a paper mill, two industrial complexes, a waste water treatment works and the highly contaminated Umlaas river) has shown that primary
school children have an 80 percent higher chance of acquiring coughs, colds and flus than a socially and economically similar group of children located 16 kilometers away. In another survey, 70 percent of those interviewed in Merewent complained of respir
atory disorders.
- Hundreds of barrels of industrial solvents and effluents from paint making have been found stacked among mud huts in the hinterlands outside Pietermaritzburg.
- In the Mngweni River, which flows into the Valley of the Thousand Hills, Thor Chemicals is responsible for mercury concentrations 1,500 times the level at which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declares materials toxic.
- In October 1991, 500,000 litres of aviation paraffin spilled from a South African Air Force's pump contaminating 2.5 kilometers of the Apies River killing aquatic life and more than 100 birds.
- In December 1991 a fire at a Wast-Tech dump in Germiston, containing 80 chemicals gave off fumes causing respiratory problems to nearby residents.
- In September 1992, a Rhone-Poulenc warehouse fire of more than 74 lethal chemical compounds including dioxin, sulphur dioxide and cyanides resulted in one death and hospitalization of 19 firefighters for chemical poisoning. Approximately 500 workers a
nd nearby residents inhaled fumes from this fire.
- In October 1992 at Panther Shoe Factory in Parrow Valley, Cape Town, a chemical spraying-device ignited, causing 60 employees to collapse with severe bronchospasm.
ANGOLA, MOZAMBIQUE, NAMIBIA AND ZIMBABWE
- Wars in both Angola and Mozambique have created millions of refugees who have been forced to pick the earth bare for fuel and shelter.
- UNITA and RENAMO continue to fight scorched-earth wars against their governments, brutally killing elephants and rhinos for their valuable tusks and horns to finance their violent campaigns of horror.
- There are at least three million unexploded landmines in Angola and another two million in Mozambique which promise to pose a threat of immense magnitude to both the people and the environment.
- South Africa has a long history of using defoliants such as Agent Orange in its war against the frontline states and the underground armies of the ANC and PAC.
- In former Rhodesia, the Central Intelligence Organization and the Selous Scouts deployed chemical and biological warfare such as organophosphate poisons, thallium, Warfarin, "bacteriological agents", and anthrax bacterium which has poisoned the future
of Zimbabwe where the toxic legacy lingers.
- In September 1992, there was suspected dumping of nuclear and toxic waste exports by unknown Western countries in the Skeleton Coast of Namibia.
- Mozambican refugees who fled the devastating war occupy a decrepit building which was once a paint manufacturing plant outside of Johannesburg. The grounds and sheds are lined with barrels of toxic materials which are often used as fuel and wherein ch
ildren frequently play.
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