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Protesters Call For West Side Plant To Be Punished For Polluting

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Protesters want environmental watchdogs to punish a manufacturer on Chicago's West Side that they say is polluting, reports WBBM's Nancy Harty.

Bway's plant in Little Village where the company makes metal and aerosol containers is violating air emission standards, according to Kelly Dudley, director of the of the Resistance Legal Clinic.

Protesters Call For West Side Plant To Be Punished For Polluting

She says people in the neighborhood, which includes a park and school, may have health problems due to the plant's output of VOCs, or volatile organic compounds.

"A community can suffer from having increased emissions of VOCs and unless the EPA takes enforcement action or something like that, they also don't even know," said Dudley.

Dudley says Bway entered into a consent degree in Cincinnati after a lawsuit there. She and some residents want the Illinois EPA to step up enforcement.

WBBM's calls for comment from the agency and Bway were not immediately returned.

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