The social ecology of environmental inequity: Ethnic communities and the environmental decision-making process in Orange County, California

Orange County, as one of the 21 identified post-suburban regions in the United States, is considered an "anticipatory region," where the challenges of economics, politics and social change merge and provide an example of what urban regions might do in the arena of municipal policy or what they had better avoid. Using waste management as a vignette to explore privatization and fragmentation in a post-suburban region and the consequent policy outcomes, this research finds that recycling is assumed to be a beneficial endeavor. As a primary strategy to meet the requirements of California Assembly Bill 939 requiring cities to divert more waste, the negative impacts of Material Recovery Facilities (MRFs) have remained largely unexamined.;The environmental decision-making process guiding the location of MRFs creates multi-layered inequitable outcomes. These multiple layers of inequity include differences in human health, environmental quality, and municipal financial stability. More specifically, differences emerge from the health and environmental impacts of a "dirty" versus "clean" MRF; how a city negotiates less than advantageous contracts with waste management companies; and the disproportionate burden on Latino communities in Orange County when these facilities are located on city boundaries next to barrios. In combination with the presence of a power elite, decentralization and cultural and spatial fragmentation facilitate the creation of urban policy that favors the interests of upper-income groups.;Semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 51 planners, recycling plant personnel, elected officials, and community leaders and residents in seven cities in Orange County indicate that dirty MRFing is particularly undesirable and that the response of ethnic communities affected by MRFs has been negative based on the following criteria: (1) the health of the predominantly Latino workers who sort trash may be compromised, (2) dirty MRFs are more expensive to build than clean MRFs, (3) the most minimal learning occurs on the part of citizens when they are not participating in material separation, (4) commingled materials are worth less than separated materials on the secondary materials market, (5) dirty MRFs have undesirable environmental impacts, and (6) MRFs are built and owned by large waste conglomerates through exclusive contracts which transfer control of the waste stream from public to private entities.;Ethnic communities have coalesced through faith-based community organizations. Future environmental resistance will most likely evolve out of faith-based organizations on a case by case basis rather than emerge in the form of an independent environmental justice coalition that is continuous in its action. An assessment of how cities choose to meet the recycling mandate is important because other states will observe California's success or failure in waste diversion. Also, how cities choose to comply with this mandate raises broader questions regarding policy design for democracy, and whether these policy choices will lead to greater cultural fragmentation, economic inequity, and political unrest.