Desmond D'Sa's efforts resulted in the closure of a chemicals dump in a residential³ area of Durban, winning him a Goldman Environmental Prize.

 

The awards are described as "the Nobel Prize for grassroots environmentalism". 

 

Mr D'Sa and five other winners will receive their awards on Monday at a presentation ceremony in San Francisco.

 

As a co-founder of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA), he campaigned to raise awareness⁴ of the plight⁵ of communities living alongside the waste facility.

 

Among the schemes he oversaw⁶ were the "bucket brigade" and the "smell chart". The bucket brigade consisted of local residents collecting samples of air in their communities, which where then sent off to the US where they were analysed.

 

"When we got the results back, we developed a flow chart of all the different smells and odours so then people could be better educated about the chemical odours and the impact they would have on health," Mr D'Sa recalled.

 

With the data, Mr D'Sa and his team lobbied the government, which resulted in several health studies being done. 

 

One of the studies showed that more than half of the 300,000-strong population had chronic⁷ asthma⁸, he observed. 

 

He added that the study also quantified cancer risk as 25-in-100,000 people, compared with the norm of 1-in-100,000.

 

"This was a conservative conclusion because the data was conservative yet it showed that the risk was very high and more needed to be done," Mr D'Sa told BBC News.

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