70,000 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center was shipped to India

[Jahnava Nitai Das 2]

India Considers World Trade Center Steel Scrap Inauspicious

GO TO SOURCE

 

NEW DELHI, INDIA, September 4, 2002: Indians are shying away from World Trade Center scrap steel shipped to the country to be recycled, afraid its history makes it "inauspicious." But it may be more than that -- it may be lethal. Critics say India has become the developed world's dumping ground, rapidly poisoning itself and its billion-plus people with toxins from both the waste and the pollution from the sometimes dangerous methods used to recycle it. The world's second-most populous country combines low wages, lax environmental laws and a huge domestic market for the recycled products, says Suneel Pandey, a researcher with the Tata Research Energy Institute. About 70,000 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center was shipped to India before it was stopped by objections from environmentalists and unions, says Greenpeace India. Greenpeace says the scrap is contaminated by asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, plastics and the lead, mercury and other contaminants in the computers and fittings inside the twin towers destroyed last year. A preliminary study in India found no toxins, but Greenpeace and other environmental groups question the study's accuracy. Indian scrap dealers are now having trouble selling the WTC steel for other reasons. "People are having some reservations. It's a sentimental matter," said O. P. Bajpai, an adviser to the Indian Steel Alliance lobby group. "In India, it's a matter of belief," he said, refusing to comment on other issues about the WTC scrap.