Less than a dozen blocks away from my home and within a mile of downtown Oakland, a multi-ton pile of scrap metal threatens to spontaneously combust under the hot sun. Old cars and appliances, batteries, and gasoline vapors release cadmium, lead and zinc into the air and soil, the heavy metals and toxic particulates making their way towards dozens of schools, health care centers and my neighbors’ homes. This is Radius Recycling’s metal shredding facility, one of nine in the state.
As executive director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, I’ve spent decades pushing recyclers like Radius to be better neighbors. But a new bill, drafted by the metal shredding industry and facing an imminent vote in the California Assembly, would gut oversight of these dangerous facilities and lead to more toxic pollution in West Oakland and across California.
Proponents are spinning Senate Bill 404 as “green,” but a closer look reveals a cynical plot by industry insiders to move regulation and enforcement from our public agencies to the very facilities doing the polluting — essentially putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.
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At Radius’ West Oakland facility, the company has racked up dozens of violations, at least two major fires, and over $8 million in fines and settlements in the past five years alone. Two years ago, an illegal multi-ton mountain of scrap metal spontaneously combusted, forcing people across the East Bay to shelter in place and exacerbating respiratory illnesses like COPD and asthma. SB 404 would remove what little oversight and enforcement already exists.
What on earth makes anyone think that a self-regulating Radius will clean up its act?
The company’s negligent behavior in West Oakland, an under-resourced, historically Black neighborhood, is a textbook result of environmental racism. Studies have shown that historically redlined communities like West Oakland have higher levels of air pollution. This neighborhood battles emissions from multiple freeways and the Port: at least five recycling facilities clustered within just a couple of square miles push pollution to even more dangerous levels. We pay for this poisoned air with high asthma rates and emergency room visits and missed days of school and work. Ultimately, communities of color pay with their lives: the average life expectancy for Black West Oaklanders is up to seven years shorter than the county average.
SB 404 could allow metal shredding facilities to operate indefinitely without a permit, stripping local and regional regulatory agencies of the ability to shut down noncompliant facilities. Incredibly, it would also codify an 80s-era loophole by defining these facilities as nonhazardous — in direct contradiction of scientific evidence.
We know the recycling industry plays a critical role in reducing waste and recovering value in our resource-intensive economy. But these companies have shown us that if they’re going to operate in our backyards, they must be carefully regulated — and not by lobbyists or polluters. Impacted community members have been demanding lawmakers rewrite this broken regulatory system. SB 404 ignores those voices.
Giving recycling companies a pass to poison under-resourced communities and communities of color across the state isn’t environmentalism. It’s environmental racism. This bill would entrench West Oakland and many other neighborhoods across the state as sacrifice zones, forcing us to deal with toxic chemicals and spontaneous fires for the sake of corporate profits. My organization stands with more than 40 community organizations, agencies and businesses across California in opposition to SB 404. For the health of our community and the future of California’s environment, I urge our elected representatives to reject this toxic legislation, and I hope our fellow Californians do the same.
Brian Beveridge is executive director of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, a nonprofit environmental justice organization.