Chicago Reader21%
Residents call on Sims Metal to ‘Stop Poisoning Pilsen’ 11%
By Ben Lauren13%
7/30/2026, 8:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 26 faulty reasoning types, including Anecdotal, Pessimism Bias, and Confirmation Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 10% saturation with 124 hits. Analysis detected 1,279 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,238 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 26.8% and a BS Rank of 11% (19,979 of 22,233 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 89.90% of the article peer group.
Near the gazebo in Dvorak Park on a Monday evening in June, a group of about ten Pilsen residents gathered to paint cardboard and neon poster boards with phrases including “Metal Madness” and “Sims Must Go!”
The group discussed their plans for a demonstration two days later, when more than 30 Chicagoans protested outside a metal shredding plant they say is poisoning their neighborhood.
Activists with the “Stop Poisoning Pilsen” campaign are calling on the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to deny Sims Metal an operating permit until testing unequivocally certifies that its Pilsen plant is safe.
The plant has been operating in the neighborhood for more than 30 years and has been previously linked to health concerns for residents.
“They haven’t lived up to their promises,” said Ajay Chatha, one of the campaign’s lead organizers.
“If we don’t call attention to this data, the Illinois EPA will give them a permit.”
The Illinois EPA, which will decide whether to reissue the permit at some point this year, is evaluating emissions data collected for a “stack test” in April 2025.
The test, conducted by Alliance Technical Group, is designed to measure harmful metals in the air near the facility.
When Sims shreds metals for reuse, metal particles enter the air that, if not filtered properly, can lead to severe health effects when ingested.
The facility finished installation on new emissions filters last year, but Donald Wink, a chemistry professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, said the test did not measure for potentially harmful metals including manganese.
Wink said the effects of ingesting manganese as a pollutant are unclear, but some studies suggest long term exposure could lead to asthma.
He said the community needs to know how much Sims is emitting before a decision is made.
“Let’s get some answers before they permit,” Wink said.
Sims’s permit dates back to 2022, when the plant failed a stack test, resulting in a settlement with the Illinois attorney general’s office.
The agreement required the plant to construct new pollution control equipment, which it completed in 2025.
During the three-year period where Sims was allowed to continue operating, the federal EPA also tested Sims’s emissions and found they “would not cause either short- or long-term health effects for the community near the facility.
In a statement to the Reader, Sims Metal said they remain “confident” in the U.S.
EPA’s data and in their emissions control system.
The federal EPA ended testing in December 2025 after confirming the system was working.
But now that Sims is not being supervised by the federal government, Wink said approving the permit based on inconclusive state data is reckless.
If the permit is approved, the next state test won’t be for three years.
“It’ll be this blank check, and nobody will be watching,” Wink said.
Pilsen, a historically working-class Latine, and specifically Mexican, neighborhood, has had a long history of environmental pollution.
Along with Chatha, many members of the Stop Poisoning Pilsen campaign are also part of Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization, which successfully organized for the closure of the Fisk coal plant in 2012 and, more recently, has advocated for the safe demolition of the Damen Silos.
PERRO also runs community events centered around nature, such as art classes and outdoor yoga.
“We want the communities here to be able to engage with what little nature we do have,” Chatha said.
“Despite all the shitty things that happen, this is a very vibrant space where lots of good things also happen.”
Once the Illinois EPA decides whether to issue a new permit, the public will have two weeks to provide input on the decision.
“That’s not very much time to educate the community,” Chatha said.
“What our campaign is really trying to do is build a consciousness around what’s happening.”
But in Dvorak park over a month later—as children swam in the pool, people walked their dogs and musicians played guitar in the grass—many residents said they knew very little about the campaign or Sims’s existence altogether.
Siul Reynoso has lived in Pilsen for 12 years and works at Benito Juarez Community Academy, a high school across the street from the metal shredding plant.
Reynoso described “intense” exhaust from the plant and supported the plant moving away from the neighborhood.
“I wish they would find a way to not emit as much waste, although I’m unaware of how much impact they are having with the air quality in the vicinity,” Reynoso said.
Several other residents also said they were interested in learning more about the campaign and the plant’s emissions generally, but admitted they didn’t know where to look for information.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Anna Phillips said.
“No one tells us what’s going on.”
Phillips grew up in Pilsen.
She returned to the city last year after leaving Chicago for decades.
She suggested the campaign should use community Facebook pages to broaden their audience.
Six-year Pilsen resident Dave Byrnes was somewhat aware of other environmental issues in the neighborhood but said he didn’t know anything about the fight over the Sims permit.
Byrnes suggested organizers could send physical flyers in the mail.
In recent decades, wealthier residents have moved into Pilsen, which has raised property costs and forced multigenerational residents out of their neighborhood.
Reynoso worried about the neighborhood’s ability to organize against the permit if newer neighborhood residents aren’t engaging with the neighborhood’s history.
They need to put in the effort to understand the socio-environmental issues that have affected it for decades, Reynoso said.
“The cornerstones of community are going to slowly be picked apart by gentrification, and it’s going to be harder to pinpoint these issues,” Reynoso said.
But Phillips said the changes to Pilsen have been positive.
She compared Pilsen today to Lincoln Park, referencing how years of community pressure there resulted in the closure of the General Iron shredding plant.
She said any campaign in Pilsen should target its newer, wealthier residents.
“If you’re gonna want change, they’re gonna do it,” Phillips said.
“No one listens to us.”
But the campaign believes change in the neighborhood can come from longtime residents as well.
Over the past month, they ran a free community health clinic and a community bike ride through the metal plant, the Fisk plant and Little Village.
On August 1, they will have an art-build for the campaign at Benito Juarez high school, and later in the month will be hosting an “environmental justice block party.”
“We really are open to anyone in the community that can come join, pitch in ideas,” Chatha said.
“Any actions that we take, any work that we do is all consensus driven.”
Their next step will be writing an open letter calling on Governor J.B.
Pritzker to deny the permit, which they hope will be co-signed by other environmental groups across the country.
In the meantime, the Stop Poisoning Pilsen campaign has worked to raise awareness during a free community health clinic and community bike ride through the metal plant, the Fisk plant, and Little Village.
In August, it will be hosting an environmental justice block party.
“The people of Pilsen and the southwest side deserve better,” said campaign organizer Rebecca Ramirez.
“We deserve clean air.
We deserve a healthy neighborhood.
We deserve a future where our children do not have to pay for the corporate profit with their health.”
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