The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [154]
Meanwhile, the other 4,000 tons remained uncovered on the beach in Gonaïves, decreasing in size as more and more of it was blown away or washed into the sea each rainy season. I visited Haiti three times while the ash sat on the beach. I was amazed how widely known the ash was; wherever I went in Haiti, if I introduced myself as a person working on waste, immediately each person would ask if I had seen the ash in Gonaïves. I asked my Haitian friends why—with the many problems that Haiti was facing, including much more immediate health threats—the ash had gained so much attention. My friends told me that Haitians have long felt “dumped upon” by the United States, and the actual ash dumping was widely perceived as the epitome of that careless attitude. What is more symbolic than the richest country in the hemisphere dumping its waste on the poorest and then turning a deaf ear to all pleas for help? So Haitians were especially committed to sending the ash home. It was a matter not just of environmental health, but of dignity and justice.
Frustrated with the lack of responsibility taken by either Philadelphia or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, some Haitians living in the United States approached Greenpeace seeking assistance. In alliance with them, my Greenpeace colleague Kenny Bruno and I reached out to members of Philadelphia’s faith-based communities, especially the Quakers, and launched Project Return to Sender. We demanded that Philadelphia take responsibility for the ash in Gonaïves and dispose of it in a regulated landfill in this country. For more than ten years we hounded the mayors of Philadelphia, organized citizens to speak up at city hall meetings, and met with Haitians here and in Haiti. In response, successive city administrations kept changing the official party line. Sometimes they said Philadelphia bore no responsibility, other times they said they would take the ash back but had no money to help pay. Mayor Edward Rendell and most city council members turned a deaf ear, saying it just wasn’t their problem.
So finally we decided to make it their problem.
In the mid to late 1990s, Project Return to Sender organized a number of creative actions to get the attention of political leaders in Philadelphia and Washington. The mayor of Philadelphia and the EPA administrator received hundreds of envelopes from individual Haitians, each containing a pinch of the ash and marked “WARNING: contains toxic ash mislabeled as fertilizer, RETURN TO SENDER.” American students across the country sent valentines to the mayor, encouraging him to “have a heart, clean up Philadelphia’s ash.” Philadelphia residents attended city council meetings to demand the city take responsibility for its waste. In a wonderful demonstration of solidarity, a group of Philadelphians even went from Philly to Haiti to visit the ash and to protest in front of the U.S. embassy there.
For months, the mayor’s office faxed me a daily schedule of the mayor’s events. (It was easily available upon request—a policy that may have since been revisited.) We ensured that groups of students, Quakers, or Haitians greeted him at each event with a gigantic banner: “MAYOR RENDELL: Do the right thing, bring the ash home.” At the airport, celebrating a new direct flight to the Netherlands, there we were. At a gala at a museum, guests in tuxedos and evening gowns all passed the banner on the way from their limos to the entrance.
One morning, going over the fax of Mayor Rendell’s appearances, I was delighted to see that that very evening he’d be in D.C., where I was. The city of Philadelphia was hosting an event at a big hotel on Capitol Hill. My friends Dana Clark and Heidi Quante and I got dressed up and headed there. It’s a funny thing to put on high heels in an effort to get toxic ash cleaned up. We lingered at the entrance to the gigantic ballroom where the party was held, listening to the band and