<p>Environmental justice struggles in Latin America are informed by regional histories and are embedded in broader social justice and livelihood struggles. In this article, I present the case of two contaminated communities in the majority Afrodescendant city of Esmeraldas, Ecuador,&#xa0;to investigate the process through which people construct and renegotiate a form of popular environmentalism through ongoing collective discussions. I explore where community members’ frames of understanding come from and how they contribute to the formation of local environmental perspectives. Drawing on ethnographic data and a dialogic analysis of frames, I show that in this context, environmental concerns and political action are embedded in everyday life rather than being a movement people choose to identify with, and they are informed by past experiences and reconfigured to confront present conflict. I find that situating environmental issues within broader social justice claims results in an everyday environmentalism that is inseparable from other aspects of social reality instead of being a strategic political position. This case contributes to a broader understanding of struggles for environmental justice beyond our largely U.S.-based literature and facilitates cross-regional scholarly conversations.</p>