"An ongoing CalMatters investigation has shown how California companies and governments avoid the Golden State’s strict environmental regulations by shipping toxic waste across state borders. New reporting shows how California exports the risk to Mexico."

"The fumes that wandered into Martha Beatriz León’s preschool on the outskirts of Tecate, Mexico smelled way worse than usual, like rotting garbage. Or maybe it was ammonia. One woman compared it to spent gunpowder.

Whatever it was, León said it gave her a headache. Later that day in March 2022 her teachers began feeling sick, she said. Children throughout the neighborhood of San Pablo started vomiting.

“It was a hard day,” León said. “We didn’t know what was going on.”

On social media, warnings spread about a chemical release that came from behind the tall concrete and corrugated metal walls just across the road, a toxic waste recycling plant called Recicladora Temarry de Mexico."

Robert Lewis and Wendy Fry report for CalMatters December 20, 2023. [2]