Mercury is a heavy metal that is very toxic even in small doses.

[Guest guest]

" Mercury is a heavy metal that is very toxic even in small doses.

Exposure to mercury can lead to damage of the brain, spinal

cord, kidneys and liver. "

 

May 7, 2003

 

Hazardous Waste Is Shipped From India to U.S. Recycling Plant

By SARITHA RAI

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/07/international/asia/07INDI.ht

ml?ex=1053316 & pagewanted=print & position=

 

BANGALORE, India, May 5 — In what environmental activists in

India are hailing as a major victory, tons of hazardous waste

from an abandoned thermometer factory owned by India's

largest consumer products company, Hindustan Lever Ltd., is

heading to a recycling plant in the United States for safe

disposal.

 

About 300 tons of mercury-contaminated material and waste

from the thermometer plant in Kodaikanal town, in India's

southern state of Tamil Nadu, will be shipped to the United

States.

 

A ship carrying the material is expected to dock in New York on

May 29. The waste shipment is headed to Bethlehem Apparatus

Company, in Hellertown, Pa., the world's largest mercury

recycling facility.

 

Ameer Shahul, the corporate campaign coordinator for

Greenpeace India, termed the shipment " reverse dumping, "

referring to a reversal of earlier instances in which hazardous

material has been shipped from the developed world to poorer

countries.

 

Prolonged protests from environmental activists led to the

closing of the Hindustan Lever plant two years ago. Hindustan

Lever is a subsidiary of Unilever.

 

" We have forced the company to send back hazardous material

from a poor country like India, an event that doesn't happen too

often, " said V. R. Rajagopal Dorairajah, a member of Palani Hills

Conservation Council, one of the conservation groups involved in

the dispute. " This is a big win for us. "

 

Mercury is a heavy metal that is very toxic even in small doses.

Exposure to mercury can lead to damage of the brain, spinal

cord, kidneys and liver.

 

India has no recycling facilities for mercury-contaminated

material.

 

On Wednesday, the ship carrying several containers of

contaminants from the plant, including waste glass tainted with

mercury, effluent sludge, thermometers and metallic mercury,

will leave Tuticorin port, about 200 miles south of the city of

Madras in southeastern India.

 

Greenpeace activists who joined local environmental groups to

campaign against the plant are closely monitoring the

hazardous cargo.

 

Hindustan Lever confirmed the shipment. The waste was

transported by road to the southern port under police supervision

during daylight hours, the company said.

 

The thermometer factory was acquired by Hindustan Lever from

Pond's India Ltd., a cosmetics maker.

 

Pond's moved the factory to India from the United States after the

plant owned there by its parent, Chesebrough-Pond's, had been

dismantled.

 

The mercury for the thermometers was imported, primarily from

the United States, and finished thermometers were exported to

markets in the United States and Europe.

 

The thermometer plant operated for nearly two decades in

Kodaikanal, a popular summer resort dating back to the colonial

period.

 

Hindustan Lever said it was taking action to remediate

contaminated soil according to stringent international

regulations.

 

It is currently seeking approval of its remediation plan by the

Tamil Nadu pollution control board before it starts the process,

the company said.

 

Environmental activists have charged that mercury vapor

released from the factory has impaired the health of the workers

and community, a charge that Hindustan Lever vehemently

denies.

 

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company