Intersectional and Entangled Risks: An Empirical Analysis of Disasters and Landfills

Abstract

Landfills are environmental hazards linked to harms, such as the production of greenhouse gases and the accumulation of toxins in natural and human systems. Although environmental justice research has established such unwanted land uses as hazardous waste sites occur in poor communities and communities of color, less is known about the relationship between landfills and gender. As a driver of global climate change, there is also limited research into the relationships among disasters, landfills, and climate-related risks. To fill this gap, the current study uses an intersectional approach to theorize and empirically analyze relationships among landfills, disasters, race, class, and gender. We employ negative binomial regression to analyze a unique U.S. dataset of landfill counts, total number of disasters, and socio-demographic characteristics, including the use of two-way interactions among race, sex, and socioeconomic status variables, and number of federally-declared disasters that influence landfill counts. Findings suggest that intersecting axes of social location (specifically gender and race) are not multiplicative when it comes to landfills or the environmental risks they pose, but we argue may be entangled—that is related in non-linear and complicated ways. Using intersectionality theory, we interpret the findings to indicate that women of color are agents of resistance enacting their own forms of power against dominant structural arrangements that produce and maintain environmental injustices. Conclusions and implications for environmental justice, intersectionality, and climate risks are further discussed.

Along the energy justice continuum: An examination of energy disposal through the lens of feminist community based participatory action research

“…Environmental justice research and activism has a long tradition of investigating the uneven distribution of environmental inequalities such as poor air quality and the siting of hazardous facilities that disproportionately affect people of color and low-income communities across the U.S. and globally (e.g. [ 8 – 13 ]). Environmental justice research has sought both to identify the driving forces of environmental inequality, specifically racism, through discriminatory residential choice, and poverty, through a “race to the bottom”, stemming from hazardous waste siting, and to unpack the harmful impacts of such inequalities including adverse health effects, such as high asthma rates and low birth rates, and marginalization of residents and communities [ 6 , 9 , 14 – 18 ].…”

“…Environmental justice research has sought both to identify the driving forces of environmental inequality, specifically racism, through discriminatory residential choice, and poverty, through a “race to the bottom”, stemming from hazardous waste siting, and to unpack the harmful impacts of such inequalities including adverse health effects, such as high asthma rates and low birth rates, and marginalization of residents and communities [ 6 , 9 , 14 – 18 ]. Scholars have also investigated such impacts on rural communities (e.g., [ 8 , 19 , 20 ]) through specific studies into the disparate environmental and social impacts from hydraulic fracturing [ 21 ], coal impoundments [ 22 ], coal production [ 23 ], and hazardous waste facilities [ 19 ].…”

“…Scholars have also argued for a deeper engagement with intersectional feminist approaches to energy issues to identify structural inequalities, access to resources, and power differentials [ 67 , 68 ]. An intersectional approach investigates the interlocking axes of social location that exacerbates social inequality [ 69 , 70 ] with recent scholarship applying this approach to issues of environmental and energy justice including the distribution of landfills [ 8 , 71 – 73 ]. Intersectionality approaches engage with experiences and meaning of belonging to multiple social groups, examines power and inequality, and illuminates how structural power operates to create wide ranging disparities [ 71 , 74 ].…”

Critical Environmental Injustice: A Case Study Approach to Understanding Disproportionate Exposure to Toxic Emissions

“…Distributive justice refers to the distribution of environmental harms and benefits [ 7 ]. Much EJ scholarship has focused on this kind of injustice, including the disproportionate distribution of environmental hazards such as landfills [ 30 ], hazardous industrial facilities [ 31 ], and poor air quality [ 12 ]. Such uneven distribution of hazards results in disproportionate exposure to toxics and its accompanying health impacts which tend to be experienced by marginalized communities (e.g., [ 12 ]).…”