Global Goods, Local Impacts: Equity & Justice in Material Circulation and Disposal | Material Health: Design Frontiers

Ana Baptista, Ph.D., is the chair of environmental policy and sustainability management program at The New School. Her talk, “Global Goods, Local Impacts: Equity & Justice in Material Circulation and Disposal” tells the story of goods and garbage. Specifically how their transportation is one of the major sources of devastating and unjust impacts on the surrounding communities, which are predominantly low-income people of color.

Dr. Baptista expounds upon environmental justice and environmental racism, and the maldistribution of pollution and waste on “sacrifice zones”. She takes a specific look at her local sacrifice zone of Newark, NJ, whose port services the wealthiest and largest consumer market in the world and whose incinerators process 50% of their waste. Baptista, alongside several national and local coalitions and organizations, is working to correct these injustices and place the right to shape one’s own environment back into the hands of the communities that have been most severely impacted.