 About CHEJ > 25 Years of Achievements
25 Years of Achievements
Creation of Superfund
The federal Superfund program, established in 1980 to clean up waste sites, was a direct result of the efforts of CHEJ’s Executive Director Lois Gibbs and her neighbors at Love Canal.
Superfund Technical Assistance Project
CHEJ subsequently helped spawn the Superfund Technical Assistance Grants, which provided $50,000 grants for communities to hire technical experts to ensure citizens were able to fully participate in assessing site contamination.
Stopping New Hazardous Waste Landfills
Since CHEJ launched its campaign to stop new hazardous waste landfills from being built, every such proposal has been beaten, except for one in Colorado in 1984.
Toxic Merry-Go-Round Campaign
With local grassroots organizations, CHEJ developed strategies and regulations to halt the corporate practice of taking waste that has been cleaned up at one site and dumping it in another community.
Right-To-Know
CHEJ helped to pass the Community Right-To-Know law, which gives individuals access to information about toxics in their communities. Today, you can look online to find out which dangerous chemicals industries are storing and releasing in your community.
Race, Class, & Waste
In the mid-1980s, CHEJ uncovered reports that exposed industry’s attempts to site hazardous facilities specifically in low-income, racially diverse, rural, and elderly communities to take advantage of these groups’ lack of political clout. In doing so, CHEJ and other groups had opened the public’s eyes to the link between race, class, and pollution.
McToxics Campaign
CHEJ kicked off its McToxics Campaign to urge fast food restaurants to stop packaging their food in Styrofoam, which releases hazardous chemicals during production, use, and disposal. In 1990, McDonalds announced that it would no longer use Styrofoam packaging; dozens of counties, churches, and government buildings followed suit by passing purchasing policies and local ordinances.
Kick Ash Campaign
CHEJ assisted grassroots groups working to prevent the classification of solid incinerator ash as “special waste.” The campaign helped defeat legislation that would have allowed this category of ash to be disposed of without first testing for toxicity.
Dioxin Reduction
Dioxin air emissions fell 77% between 1987 and 1995. Over 90% of this reduction is due to the determined efforts of grassroots groups across the country who, working in partnership with CHEJ, shut down 2,600 medical waste incinerators and blocked or shut down hundreds of garbage incinerators nationwide. (Incinerators are the primary source of dioxin air emissions.)
Safer Medical Institutions
CHEJ established Health Care Without Harm in 1996 through our Stop Dioxin Exposure Campaign. HCWH successfully convinced hundreds of health care institutions to phase out dangerous products like mercury thermometers and PVC plastic IV bags. HCWH, which continues to be very successful, became an independent organization in 2001.
Unsafe Solid Waste Landfills
Grassroots groups working with CHEJ have successfully shut down over 1,000 unsafe solid waste landfills over the past 24 years.
Building Safe Schools
Across the country, parents working with CHEJ have stopped dozens of schools from being built on contaminated property.
Intentional Human Dosing with Pesticides
CHEJ generated public pressure to force EPA to establish a policy that
categorically prohibits testing pesticides on infants, children, and
pregnant or nursing women.
Safer Consumer Products
CHEJ’s PVC Campaign convinced numerous major corporations—including Microsoft, Victoria’s Secret, Johnson & Johnson, and Crabtree & Evelyn—to phase out their use of the “poison plastic” in products and packaging. In the first six months following Microsoft’s completion of its PVC phase out, over 361,000 pounds of PVC plastic were eliminated from the waste stream.
First National Conference on Precaution
In 2006, CHEJ organized and co-sponsored the first national conference on precaution, "Taking Precautionary Action - Roadmap for Success". Over 300 activists traveled to Baltimore, Maryland for this groundbreaking event and joined together to share successful precautionary strategies, tools, and programs. The one-of-a-kind conference united participants working on toxics, nuclear waste, disease prevention, pesticides, worker safety, and many other issues.
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