Vaal residents protested outside the offices of ArcelorMittal on Friday afternoon, claiming that pollution generated by the steel giant was causing them to become ill...Thabiso Radebe, an office bearer of the South African Communist Party, said "many residents are sick " as a result of extensive air and groundwater pollution. "They suffer from chronic respiratory diseases." Residents of shack settlements and smallholdings, who joined the protest, claim their neighbourhood is still being used as a dump-site by the steel giant.