Traveling outside the US (been moving around for almost 5 years now) has opened my eyes to the value of some of the consumer/environmental/etc protection/safety agencies/laws in the US that I didn't appreciate before.
Some examples not necessarily related to the EPA:
- Auto emissions regulations (or lack thereof)
- Waste disposal (e.g. burning trash on the side of the road or dumping trash in public places)
- Worksite safety (ever see a worker on a commercial build site wearing flip-flops two stories up on a rickety wood scaffold held together by twine, welding with no protective gear?)
- Building codes, both for safety and accessibility
- Marketing spam (depending on location, I'll get a handful of marketing sms a day - I have a newfound appreciation for CAN-SPAM[1])
You can argue that certain regulations go too far or maybe they don't go far enough, and those are important question to ask.
However, and this photo-documentary project underlines this, I've personally come to the conclusion that the importance of environmental regulations can't be understated. It affects the lives of literally everyone, in a "the air I breathe" and "the water I drink" and "the food I eat" and "the space I occupy" kind of way.
Documentation project overview: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/542493
Archive contents: https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.parentNaId=54249...
Link to the original PopSci article: https://www.popsci.com/america-before-epa-photos
Traveling outside the US (been moving around for almost 5 years now) has opened my eyes to the value of some of the consumer/environmental/etc protection/safety agencies/laws in the US that I didn't appreciate before.
Some examples not necessarily related to the EPA:
- Auto emissions regulations (or lack thereof)
- Waste disposal (e.g. burning trash on the side of the road or dumping trash in public places)
- Worksite safety (ever see a worker on a commercial build site wearing flip-flops two stories up on a rickety wood scaffold held together by twine, welding with no protective gear?)
- Building codes, both for safety and accessibility
- Marketing spam (depending on location, I'll get a handful of marketing sms a day - I have a newfound appreciation for CAN-SPAM[1])
You can argue that certain regulations go too far or maybe they don't go far enough, and those are important question to ask.
However, and this photo-documentary project underlines this, I've personally come to the conclusion that the importance of environmental regulations can't be understated. It affects the lives of literally everyone, in a "the air I breathe" and "the water I drink" and "the food I eat" and "the space I occupy" kind of way.
[1] https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam