One day, trucks showed up at Marsha Jackson’s house in Dallas, Texas and began to dump asphalt shingles in her backyard. Three years later, the mound becomes a mountain–and it’s making Marsha and her family sick.
Environmental racism can be found throughout the United States. Several months ago I visited Marsha Jackson, a Dallas resident who has been at odds with the City of Dallas for the illegal dumping of shingles in her backyard.
This neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, has been the victim of racist zoning policies and poor city oversight for years. In 2018, white businessmen took advantage of the situation and began to dump a huge mountain of toxic waste behind Marsha Jackson’s backyard. It’s caused her severe health problems and she’s been fighting to get rid of it ever since. Her doctors say the effects could kill her.
Instead of upholding their name, Blue Star Recycling has created a mountain of toxic asphalt shingles next to a small community of citizens in South Dallas, TX.
Workers begin to remove shingles from what is known as Shingle Mountain, a pile of roof shingles that accumulated over about three years after a landowner leased out his property for a businessman to recycle shingles.
Environmental pollution is real, and here's one story to prove it. Marsha Jackson, a Dallas native, has been battling Shingle Mountain for several years.