April 16, 1999 (Philadelphia, PA) -- Friday morning, around 10:30 AM, students from the University of Pennsylvania delivered the first stack of petitions signed by students concerned about Philadelphia's incinerator ash that still remains on a beach in Haiti after over a decade.

The Penn Environmental Group, with the assistance of the Penn Progressive Activist Network, Amnesty International, and Dessalines Haitian Students Association, have collected almost 500 signatures supporting the ash's return to Philadelphia. The petitions ask for Mayor Ed Rendell to take responsibility for this waste and find a landfill in which it can be properly disposed.

An outside company was hired to dispose of this ash, created from the incineration of Philadelphia's waste 11 years ago, and never fulfilled the original contract. Instead, claiming the ash was fertilizer, the company dumped over 2,000 tons onto a Haitian beach. The remaining ash was eventually dumped somewhere in the ocean.

Caroline Lee, a member of Penn Environmental Group stated, "It's ridiculous that this ash sits on a beach in Haiti blowing into the ocean instead of in a landfill where it can properly be stored. Especially since all it would take to remedy the situation is one phone call from Mayor Rendell."

Brian Kelly, president of Amnesty International at the University of Pennsylvania, is upset because he sees this as a human rights issue. "The people of Haiti and other developing nations are not our dumping grounds," said Kelly. "Mayor Rendell has the opportunity to end this blatant disregard for human rights by cleaning up Philadelphia's waste."

The students plan on continuing to campaign for this issue until Mayor Rendell agrees to do the right thing and bring the ash back to a landfill where it can be disposed of properly.