In a not that shocking but still disgusting story the London Sunday Times is reporting that two San Francisco based clothing companies, Levi Strauss and The Gap, have been illegally disposing of hazardous waste.
Both companies manufacture jeans out of a plant in Lesotho, South Africa, and according to the London Sunday Times have been dumping razors, needles, and harmful chemicals into a municipal dump in Lesotho where poor children are known to scavenge for things to sell.
To paint an even more hellish picture, the dump is apparently constantly on fire, causing serious respiratory infections in many of these children.
While the opening of the plant benefited the economy of South Africa by bringing jobs, the corporations were under strict orders to adhere to at least some form of environmental responsibility. Since these allegations have emerged, both companies have been scurrying to conduct independent investigations of their own, which maybe was something they should have been doing all along.
Residents say the wastewater that flows untreated from the plant has dyed the river indigo blue. Probably not the wash they were looking for in their denim.
