The problem of our waste is really impacting our Latinx communities
in very disproportionate ways.
We are more likely to have landfills, incinerators,
and underdeveloped waste management districts in our communities.
These facilities are polluting our air and releasing toxins that are harming our overall health.
This is happening not just here in the U.S.,
but also in the Global South in our Latin American countries.
And this includes plastic pollution at a very high rate.
Some of the pollutants that we are seeing in lakes and rivers
are coming from a lot of fossil fuel production.
Fracking is a really huge thing in contaminating our waters.
Nutrients are also contaminating our waters.
A lot of it's coming from agriculture and the pesticides that are being used there, as well.
There's a lot of ongoing efforts to really look at the way that we are managing our rivers,
and moving away from gray infrastructure into green infrastructure,
and revitalizing and restoring our rivers.
But the #1 issue with those types of efforts is that they take time,
and it's going to take a lot of funding.
So that's soot. Soot can come both from oil and gas production facilities and vehicles.
And 35% of Latinos,
live in areas that violate federal air pollution standards for particulate matter—soot.
That's a huge, huge, huge impact on health of the people living in those communities.
And that can manifest in many, many different ways.
This is essentially an epidemic that affects not only quality of life,
but length of life in Latino communities.
and Latino households are twice as likely to lack complete plumbing in their households
as opposed to white households.
One of the things that we're really seeing when it comes to lack of access to water is pollutants,
but then the other issue that doesn't really get talked a lot about is the affordability issue.
Investment in our water infrastructure is going to be really integral,
but also in water affordability programs.
Only about a third of Latinos live within walking distance to a park.
And so that means that two-thirds of the Latino population in the United States
would ironically have to drive to a park,
which in most cases, would just contribute to the existing pollution emissions in their communities.
I think we've gotta really prioritize increasing access.
So, you know, when it comes to national parks or state parks,
we've really gotta think about the fact that Latinos are less likely to own cars
than their white counterparts and other groups of people.
So we've gotta improve the public transit access
and improve the bicycle access to parks.
In all of these issues, the majority of the issue is created not by Latino communities,
and yet, they are bearing the brunt of the negative outputs.
That's literally the definition
We have a lot of work to do to rectify that
and to make policymakers aware of the fact that Latino communities are watching.