Willowbrook, Illinois -- Thursday, February 22, 2019
Gabriela Tajeda-Rios's mail box displays a green ribbon as a way to show support for the Stop Sterigenics effort. Her home is 0.2 miles from the Sterigenics plant that has been emitting a carcinogenic chemical called ethylene oxide.
From the story:
The people living in Willowbrook, Illinois, were understandably horrified to learn that they face an elevated risk of cancer due to air pollution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s most recent National Air Toxics Assessment, which was released in August, the residents of eight census tracts in the Chicago suburb and the surrounding area in DuPage County had a more than 100 in a million risk of getting cancer from air pollution. The primary culprit was a chemical called ethylene oxide, a colorless gas that emanated from a local plant owned by a company called Sterigenics. The chemical has been shown to cause reproductive problems, respiratory tract irritation, headaches, memory loss and certain cancers, including leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, and breast cancer.
CREDIT: Alyssa Schukar for The Intercept
