The Guardian Exclusive: US companies are increasingly shipping toxic waste to other countries, where some argue it poses a risk.
US companies ship more than 1m tons of hazardous waste to other countries each year, raising questions over possible impacts on health and the environment, an investigation by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab has found.
Exports of toxic waste, most of which is shipped to Mexico and Canada, have climbed 17% since 2018, US records show. And while sending it away for recycling and disposal is legal, some experts are concerned that more and more of America’s most dangerous discards are leaving the country.
Water pollution?
Marie-Claude Beaulieu, a Quebec environmental leader whose organization, Mères au Front, has been working with local residents in Blainville, said that in the 41 years since the landfill opened, the town has grown from 18,000 to 60,000 residents and homes are just a few hundred yards from the waste site:
“The citizens are very afraid: they’re afraid of cancer, they’re afraid for their kids and even their dogs. There is a risk of environmental catastrophe. People are worried about transport, about explosions, about the water running off of the site.”
Water and sediment samples taken by local residents around the site in December 2023 found cadmium levels 320 times higher than the Quebec environmental criteria for sediments in streams and rivers, as well as concerning levels of arsenic, copper and zinc. But in April, Quebec’s environmental ministry did its own water sampling and said that while it did find some anomalies, they “are considered isolated and not worrisome”.
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