Sajida Khan (55) died in her home on Sunday night, during a second bout of cancer caused — she was convinced — by Durban’s largest dump. The Bisasar Road site, which handles most of the city’s rubbish, was placed directly across the street from her home in Clare Estate in 1980.
Passionate Khan was self-taught and supremely confident when testifying about chemical pollution and the economics of solid waste. She earned a bachelor’s degree in microbiology at the former University of Durban-Westville, began work at Unilever and soon invented a freeze-dried food formula that was patented.
But she deregistered the patent to make it more accessible to low-income people across the world.
She became an activist in the early 1990s. Khan was renowned for her hospitality — and visiting environmentalists made a pilgrimage to Bisasar Road — ranking it high among Durban’s numerous “toxic tour” sites.
Inside were her generosity, fine refreshments and doctoral-level lectures in plant ecology and public health.
Outside, a few dozen metres away, was Africa’s first pilot project in “carbon trading”, in which methane is extracted from rotting trash and the greenhouse gas reduction credits sold to Northern investors. It is an innovation that municipal officials brag about — but that stalled the dump’s closure.
The project’s sponsors at the World Bank call it a win-win situation; Khan called it “another form of colonialism”.
After she filed an environmental impact assessment challenge, the bank backed off, a victory that helped raise the profile of numerous other carbon offset problems.
An international network against carbon trading, the Durban Group for Climate Justice, was founded in 2004 in part because of her.
Javier Baltodano and Isaac Rojas, of Friends of the Earth-Costa Rica, said: “Sajida introduced us to how carbon credits were used to justify the dump in the middle of a neighbourhood. She showed us her strong willingness to resist against the sickness, the dump and the racism.”
Durban environmentalist Muna Lakhani said: “We have lost a sister, a stalwart, a spirit that I have known well for more than 30 years. I miss her, but am glad that her suffering is over. Please can we choose to live our lives just a little bit in her memory, so that our consumption of our planet’s resources does not lead to more Sajidas?”
Khan is survived by her mother, Kathija, and siblings Hanifa, Zainuladevien, Rafique and Akram. — Patrick Bond
Sajida Khan: born 1952, died 2007