This groundWork Report centres on the making of environmental injustice in the Vaal Triangle.
There are three ways in which environmental injustice is imposed on people:
• By polluting them, degrading their environments and coercing labour to work for less than it
costs to live. This is called because corporations get a free ride by offloading costs onto communities, workers, the public purse and the environment.
By dispossessing them and by privatising common or public goods. This is called
because it eliminates or subordinates non-capitalist systems of production, so ensuring that
all escape routes are closed and people cannot survive without capitalism.
• By them from the political and economic decisions that lead to their being polluted
or dispossessed
This report argues that these processes are central to the larger process of accumulation that
defines capitalist development and shows this for the Vaal Triangle.
