Cape Town Residents Prepare to take on Caltex Pollution

 
The Caltex (Texaco and Chevron) Refinery in Cape Town is notorious for its contribution to hazy winter mornings and the foul smelling air all Capetonians constantly refer to. The neighbouring areas including Table View, Milnerton and Bothasig have been active in challenging Caltex and its pollution. Many residents especially the young suffer from respiratory illnesses and any casual observer driving in the area can see the accumulated black soot on the side of the homes. These illnesses have been widely publicized in the national media. The Bucket Brigade arrived here and were given a toxic tour led by the Chair of the Table View Residents Association Andy Birkinshaw. The residents were very excited about the bucket and its potential. We also had a heated meeting with the management of Caltex and their consultant on the environment. Here we report on our closing leg of the Cape Town trip.
 
 
 
(Left) The Cape Town "Bucket Brigade" takes to the streets to show off their air toxics monitoring tool in front of the system designed by Caltex to convince the community that their pollution was not a problem. (Right) Meanwhile the refinery spews out a constant cloud of brown and blue haze.  
 


The Caltex refinery is a joint venture of  the corporate giants Chevron and Texaco, who claim they cannot bring their South African refineries up to United States and European standards.
 


Refinery neighbors gathered to learn how to build their own air samplers.


Andy Birkinshaw explained the details of the Bucket sampling procedure to Caltex neighbors as they prepare to "sniff" out toxic releases in their community.

Caltex neighbors bag their first air sample in the plume of the refinery pollution.
 


Bobby Peek of groundWork and Hans Linde of Cape Metropolitan Council of Air Pollution Control get excited about the "Bucket".
 
 


Paul Buley Managing Director of Caltex and Shipra Bansal

Technical advisor to the Bucket Brigade, Shipra Bansal, views in shock and dismay, the negative response of Mr. Buley to the community's proposal of a joint venture with regards to the Bucket Brigade. Mr Buley was adamant that Caltex would not hold discussions on the community based air sampling for the next five years.  Caltex broke their public commitment of 1994, promising to reduce their Sulphur Dioxide pollution by 80% in five years, that would have made Caltex refinery the cleanest in South Africa.  On the contrary in 1998 Caltex was taken to the South African Human Rights Commission by the Table View Residents Association for the alleged human rights violations by the company.  In response Caltex is refusing to implement Environmental Improvement Projects because the community exercised their constitutional right to live in a "clean and healthy environment" (Section 24 of the Bill of Rights; Constitution of South Africa).
 

Stay tuned for further updates from Sasolburg!

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If you want to contact us on the road, please email us at: hkalan@igc.org