India sends hazardous waste back to US

[Guest guest]

India sends hazardous waste back to US

 

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ THURSDAY, APRIL 17, 2003 02:19:33 AM ]

 

NEW DELHI: In the first ever case of "reverse dumping", 1,416 drums

filled with 290 tonnes of hazardous mercury wastes from a thermometer

factory at Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu are being sent back to the US.

 

 

 

The largest hazardous waste transfer from India marks the end of a

long struggle by the local people and environmental activists led by

Greenpeace, India.

 

 

 

They had alleged that mercury vapours released from the factory owned

by Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) ruined the health of the workers and

community and caused lasting damage to the environment during its 18

years of operation.

 

 

 

HLL has at last arranged to ship the hazardous mercury and related

wastes from its now defunct thermometer factory in Kodaikanal back to

US.

 

 

 

The consignment, including glass culets, finished and semi-finished

products and sludge is leaving the Tuticorin Port on Thursday aboard

the ship Indmax Dalian. The shipment is heading to the hazardous

waste recycling firm, Bethlehem Apparatus, in Pennsylvania, a

Greenpeace official said.

 

 

 

The controversial thermometer factory was transplanted in India in

1983 after it was shut down in Watertown, New York. The factory

imported all its mercury, primarily from the United States, and

finished thermometers were exported to back to the US for

distribution to markets abroad.

 

 

 

Environmental groups had alleged that the factory had been

responsible for mercury contamination over the last 18 years.

Contamination levels outside the factory were measured at 600-800

times permissible limits but HLL had been denying this figure.

 

 

 

In March 2001, Greenpeace and a local environment group - Palani

Hills Conservation Council - exposed mercury bearing waste glass

dumped by the company at a local scrap yard. Demonstrations by local

people at the factory site forced its closure by the Tamil Nadu

Pollution Control Board.

 

 

 

The board discovered that 10 tonnes of mercury were unaccounted for

and has been lost to the environment in addition to the amount of 559

kg the company had admitted. It also found that HLL workers were

exposed to unacceptable mercury vapour levels leading to bleeding

gums, skin patches, eye irritations.

 

 

 

Mercury from the factory adversely impacted on the tropical forest of

the Pambar Shola where it is located and contaminated the nearby Kodi

lake causing wide ranging environmental effects.

 

 

 

HLL's decision to send the wastes back to the US is a sequel to the

two days of public hearings and site visits in September 2002 held by

the Indian Peoples' Tribunal under the chairmanship of Justice S N

Bhargav.

 

The tribunal confirmed that mercury pollution by the factory posed a

threat to health of workers and ecology of the forest.

 

 

----

----------