Editable-Baltimore's Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste - Flipbook - Page 13
Baltimore’s failed waste system is epitomized by the
cumulative impact of locating so much of the
industrial waste infrastructure in South Baltimore,
reinforcing racial and economic disparities including
life expectancy and asthma rates. These disparities
go back generations. In fact, the South Baltimore and
Curtis Bay region of the city was annexed in 1917 to
be zoned for a myriad of industrial polluters and
waste services. After decades of toxic chemical
manufacturing, conditions were so hazardous in the
Fairfield and Wagner’s Point neighborhoods that
residents had to be permanently evacuated.
What happened to Fairfield and Wagner’s Point are in
line with the redlining, blockbusting and
disinvestment that has targeted black and poor
neighborhoods. It is particularly crushing to look out
across the Harbor and see the other side, where
public investment has created a “Gold Coast”
spreading from the Inner Harbor to Harbor East, then
to Harbor Point, and soon to Port Covington.
Baltimore is a segregated city of private wealth
creation subsidized by municipal, state and federal
resources at the expense of staggering health
inequities and an enormous black wealth gap
(median incomes half that of whites, 31% less
homeownership).
Baltimore’s worst air polluter is the Baltimore
Refuse Energy Systems Co. (BRESCO) trash
incinerator, where 80% of Baltimore’s waste is
burned. The BRESCO incinerator, the City’s
municipally run landfill, the nation’s largest medical
waste incinerator, a CSX coal terminal, and other
industrial polluters are concentrated in South
Baltimore (see Figure 1. The frontline communities
directly impacted by these facilities and those
directly impacted by illegal dumping on vacant
properties are tired of getting dumped on.
BRESCO produces more mercury, lead, and
greenhouse gases per hour of energy than each of
Maryland’s four largest coal-fired power plants.3
BRESCO was responsible for 36% of all stationary
sources of air pollution in Baltimore in 2014 and
fined for mercury violations in 2009.4 The
incinerator burns toxic chemicals in plastics derived
from fossil fuels, damaging air quality and health. A
recent Chesapeake Bay Foundation study found
that BRESCO alone causes 55 million dollars in
health damages to residents every year.
Baltimore’s Fair Development Plan for Zero Waste
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