Environmental Justice in Industrially Contaminated Sites. A Review of Scientific Evidence in the WHO European Region

Pasetto, Roberto; Mattioli, Benedetta; Marsili, Daniela

doi:10.3390/ijerph16060998

Cited by 56 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 91 publications

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“…This work provides an update to previous work published in 2010 referred to earlier and as such, search results were restricted to articles published between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2017. Studies were focused on ambient air quality with point source pollution excluded as they form part of another review [21].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Inequalities in Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution: A Systematic Review in the WHO European Region

Fairburn

Schüle

Dreger

et al. 2019

IJERPH

114

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Ambient air pollution is a long-standing and significant public health issue. The aim of this review is to systematically examine the peer-reviewed evidence on social inequalities and ambient air pollution in the World Health Organization European Region. Articles published between 2010 and 2017 were analyzed in the review. In total 31 articles were included in the review. There is good evidence from ecological studies that higher deprivation indices and low economic position are usually linked with higher levels of pollutants such as particulate matter (particulate matter under 2.5 and 10 microns in diameter, PM2.5, PM10) and oxides of nitrogen (e.g., NO2, and NOx). There is also evidence that ethnic minorities experience a mixed exposure in comparison to the majority population being sometimes higher and sometimes lower depending on the ethnic minority under consideration. The studies using data at the individual level in this review are mainly focused on pregnant women or new mothers, in these studies deprivation and ethnicity are more likely to be linked to higher exposures of poor air quality. Therefore, there is evidence in this review that the burden of higher pollutants falls disproportionally on different social groups.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Inequalities in Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution: A Systematic Review in the WHO European Region

Fairburn

Schüle

Dreger

et al. 2019

IJERPH

114

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The declaration from the WHO Regional Office for Europe Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health, held in 2017 in Ostrava, stated the need to prevent and eliminate the adverse environmental and human health effects, costs and inequalities related to waste management and contaminated sites [66]. Nevertheless, no estimates on the overall health impact or assessment on socioeconomic and sociodemographic inequalities in contaminated sites, such as urban waste landfill or waste treatment plants, was available in Europe at that moment [67][68][69]. A survey carried out by the European Environment Information and Observation Network in 2013 reported that waste disposal and treatment are estimated to contribute to more than 37% of contaminated sites [70].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Management of Health Hazards Related to Municipal Solid Waste on Fire in Europe: An Environmental Justice Issue?

Mazzucco

Costantino

Restivo

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Landfilling should be the last option in an integrated Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management approach. In the European Union (EU), the policy framework to protect the environment and the public health against the impact of health hazards related to urban solid waste management has been consistently implemented in recent decades. A growing interest in the negative impact of fires in waste landfills on the environment and people’s health was reported in some European countries. In Italy, an increasing occurrence of arsons in MSW and landfills has been reported in recent years. During the summer of 2012, a multi-site arson occurred in the Palermo Municipal solid waste landfill of Bellolampo (western Sicily), giving rise to an environmental emergency of public health concern. Local health authorities reacted by creating an inter-institutional multidisciplinary task force with the aim to implement measures to prevent and control the risk of exposure by delimiting a protection area to be taken under strict monitoring. Environmental and epidemiological investigations were put in place by air, soil, and farm product sampling. A syndromic surveillance of the exposed population was conducted as well. The air monitoring stations system in place detected an increase in the concentrations of dioxins and dioxin-like substances with the PM10 highest emission pick documented within the first 24 h and estimated at about 60 μg/m3. Levels of heavy metals above the limits permitted by law were detected in the top- and sub-soil samples collected within the two landfill sampling sites and also in other nearby sites. Non-conforming concentration values of dioxins and dioxin-like substances were detected in samples taken from farms, milk, and water. The health syndromic surveillance did not document any daily increase in the notification of emergency admissions related to acute respiratory diseases or any other health effect potentially related to the waste arson, but these findings were limited by the non-systematic collection of data. The experience reported in the present case report, as declined within the European Union policy framework and in the view of environmental justice, documented the need to structure a permanent collaboration between the different institutional actors involved in environmental and public health protection activities in order to develop specific protocols to manage events related to the occurrence of waste-related environmental emergencies or disasters.

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“…Ard, 2015;Ash & Boyce, 2018;Banzhaf, Ma, & Timmins, 2019;Crowder & Downey, 2010;Mohai & Saha, 2015) and in Europe (e.g. Diekmann & Meyer, 2010;Glatter-Götz, Mohai, Haas, & Plutzar, 2019;Pasetto, Mattioli, & Marsili, 2019;Rüttenauer, 2018) have documented the unequal distribution of environmental hazards across different social groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perceived Pollution and Residential Sorting in Germany: Income May Not Sort, But it Helps to Escape

Rüttenauer¹,

Best²

2020

Preprint

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The disproportionate exposure of minorities and socio-economically disadvantaged households to environmental pollution is often explained by selective migration or sorting mechanisms. Yet, previous empirical findings remain inconclusive. In this study, we offer an explanation for mixed findings by focusing on the selective out-migration process triggered by environmental pollution. We use household-level panel data of the German SOEP from 1986 to 2016 and within-household estimates of correlated random effects probit models. More precisely, we test if the subjective impairment through air pollution selectively affects the probability of out-migration according to income and minority status. We find that perceived air pollution has a stronger effect on the likelihood of moving for households experiencing an income increase. Surprisingly, we find only small and imprecise differences between native German and first generation immigrant households, and a relatively large proportion of this difference can be explained by income. This indicates that selective out-migration processes substantially differ from selective in-migration processes, and environmental inequality research should more carefully distinguish the single steps of neighbourhood sorting.

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Environmental Justice in Industrially Contaminated Sites. A Review of Scientific Evidence in the WHO European Region

Cited by 56 publications

References 91 publications

Social Inequalities in Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution: A Systematic Review in the WHO European Region

Social Inequalities in Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution: A Systematic Review in the WHO European Region

The Management of Health Hazards Related to Municipal Solid Waste on Fire in Europe: An Environmental Justice Issue?

Perceived Pollution and Residential Sorting in Germany: Income May Not Sort, But it Helps to Escape

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