Introduction

Millions of South Africans drink contaminated water, work in unsafe mines and live in areas filled with hazardous waste. This is the legacy of racist and inhumane apartheid policies. Many of the nation’s poorest communities have been used as dumping grounds by Western multinational corporations leading to serious and often deadly health issues.

In South Africa, thousands of miners die annually because of hazardous conditions. More than 42,000 workers have died as a direct result of mining accidents since the mining industry began in South Africa. Many more continue to die not only from accidents but from mining-related diseases caused by exposure and inhalation of toxic substances. Farm workers are forced to spray crops with banned pesticides like DDT without protective clothing. In everyday South Africa, rural women walk approximately six miles to find fuel-wood and fresh water and children play among landfills, swim in heavily contaminated waters and breath in a toxic soup of chemicals. This is the ugly face of environmental racism and injustice in South Africa.

groundWork USA emerged from a ten year history of working in solidarity with South African organizations and communities struggling for a clean and health environment. Founded in 1993, the South African Exchange Program on Environmental Justice (SAEPEJ), predecessor to groundWork USA, focused on the effects of toxics and the deteriorating environment on the health and daily lives of communities in South Africa, and aimed to bridge communities in the US with their counterparts in South Africa around environmental justice. We provided resources to South African community, developmental, and environmental groups in order to address the neglected environments in which black South Africans live, and assisted in the building of a strong environmental justice movement which will network closely with the US and other international movements.