FILM
Polluted by Design: Histories of Waste and the Struggle for Environmental Justice in South Baltimore is a four-part documentary series that exposes how waste management policies and unchecked industrial growth have endangered communities across South Baltimore, while amplifying the work of organizers fighting to reclaim their neighborhoods’ futures. The series was created by students in Environmental Justice Studio at Johns Hopkins University and Cornell University, in partnership with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT), and developed under the guidance of instructors Chloe Ahmann and Anand Pandian and filmmaker Andrea Conte.
To learn more about environmental justice in South Baltimore and the work that went into Polluted By Design, please visit this website (and be sure to check out individual episode pages for organizing and teaching resources associated with the films).
Set in the neighborhoods of South Baltimore, Polluted by Design is a four-part documentary series examining how waste infrastructure, industrial zoning, and public policy have displaced families, entrenched environmental racism, and reshaped entire communities—while also illuminating the grassroots movements fighting back. Together, the four episodes take up one of the more important questions of our time: What would justice look like for South Baltimore communities burdened by waste for decades, and who must deliver it?
Episode 1 – Hawkins Point: Discarded Waste, Discarded Place
Connected to Curtis Bay by I-695, Hawkins Point was once a tight-knit neighborhood known for fruit trees and farm animals. Over time, it became a hub for toxic industry, culminating in a 1982 state buyout that displaced residents and transformed the peninsula into a space dominated by waste infrastructure. Today, Hawkins Point is home to “Curtis Bay Energy,” the nation’s largest medical waste incinerator, and the Quarantine Road Landfill, making it a stark example of an industrial “sacrifice zone.” This episode traces the neighborhood’s evolution from residential community to discarded place, revealing how proximity to the city—and a largely Black population—made it a target for environmental burden. By connecting past displacement to present-day pollution and health impacts, the film positions Hawkins Point as both warning and rallying cry to prevent the transformation of South Baltimore into spaces deemed expendable.
Episode 2 – Fairfield: Zoned for Toxicity
Shaped by segregationist zoning policies that made Baltimore the “birthplace of American Apartheid,” Fairfield became an industrial buffer zone where residents lived alongside hazardous facilities. Built up during World War II to house shipyard workers, the neighborhood later became segregated, under-resourced public housing. Basic infrastructure such as streetlights, sidewalks, and sewage connections lagged for decades, reflecting the city’s reluctance to invest in a community officially zoned as industrial. Frequent fires, toxic leaks, and dangerously high cancer rates defined daily life. After years of organizing, residents were relocated by 2000; by 2011, the final home was demolished. Zoned for Toxicity argues that Fairfield’s erasure was not inevitable. It was produced through maps, permits, and planning decisions that emerged from systemic racism and political neglect. It asks what it means when a city treats a neighborhood as disposable—and who is made vulnerable when history forgets.
Episode 3 – Westport: The Truth Behind the Machine
In Westport, the towering smokestacks of the incinerator long known as BRESCO—now Wheelabrator’s WIN-Waste Incinerator—stand as a daily reminder of political decisions made without community consent. In 1981, after protests from wealthier white neighborhoods, Baltimore officials placed the city’s largest waste incinerator in this predominantly Black, low-income community. Residents have since endured elevated exposure to pollutants linked to serious health harms, while corporate narratives frame the incinerator as beneficial. The Truth Behind the Machine explores what that framing obscures. The episode documents a community fighting back—challenging the incinerator’s permit renewal as a “renewable” energy source and questioning who should have the right to determine what kind of infrastructure belongs in a neighborhood. Through this examination, Westport emerges not as a site of decay, but one of resistance and revival.
Episode 4 – Curtis Bay: Grounds for Transformation
The series concludes in Curtis Bay, a waterfront neighborhood long surrounded by landfills, incinerators, chemical plants, and the CSX coal terminal. For generations, residents have faced disproportionate respiratory illness, industrial accidents, and systemic neglect. Yet Curtis Bay is also a center of organizing and imagination. This episode connects the threads of the series, showing how waste has functioned as a tool of racial, social, and economic marginalization. At the same time, it highlights the work of the South Baltimore Community Land Trust and youth advocates who are advancing civil rights complaints, land reclamation, composting initiatives, and new visions for development. Grounds for Transformation insists that meaningful change requires accountability and investment from city and state institutions. At the center of this story is a guiding question: What does justice look like for Curtis Bay, and who must deliver it?