- Western corporations are exploiting legal loopholes to
dump their waste in Africa.
- And in Ivory Coast, the price has been death and disease
for thousands.
-
- By Meera Selva
- The Independent
- 9-21-6
-
- One August morning, people living near the Akouedo rubbish
dump in Abidjan, capital of the Ivory Coast, woke up to a foul-smelling
air. Soon, they began to vomit, children got diarrhoea, and the elderly
found it difficult to breathe. "The smell was unbelievable, a cross
between rotten eggs and blocked drains," said one Abidjan resident.
"After 10 minutes in the thick of it, I felt sick."
-
- As they live near the biggest landfill in Abidjan, the
people of Akouedo are used to having rubbish dumped on their doorstep.
Trucks unload broken glass, rotting food and used syringes. Children try
to make the best of their dismal playground, looking for scraps of metal
and old clothes to sell for a few cents.
-
- But this time, the waste would benefit no one. By yesterday,
at least six people, including two children, had died from the fumes. Another
15,000have sought treatment for nausea, vomiting and headaches, queuing
for hours at hastily set up clinics. Pharmacies have run out of medicines
and the World Health Organisation has sent emergency supplies to help the
health system. The Ivorian government had resigned over the matter and,
so far, eight people have been arrested.
-
- The tragedy is said to have begun on 19 August, after
a ship chartered by a Dutch company offloaded 400 tons of gasoline, water
and caustic washings used to clean oil drums. The cargo was dumped at Akouedo
and at least 10 other sites around the city, including in a channel leading
to a lake, roadsides and open grounds.
-
- The liquids began to send up fumes of hydrogen sulphide,
petroleum distillates and sodium hydroxides across the city. As the tidy-up
operation begins, environmental groups have begun to ask how this occurred.
-
- "We thought the days when companies shipped toxic
waste to poor countries were over," said Helen Perivier, toxics co-ordinator
for Greenpeace. "It peaked in the 1980s but since then the determination
of African countries to stamp the trade out has helped yield results. That
this has happened again is extraordinary."
-
- Probo Koala, the ship that offloaded the waste, is registered
in Panama and chartered by the Dutch trading company Trafigura Beheer.
Trafigura had tried to offload its slops in Amsterdam, but the Amsterdam
Port Services recognised its contents as toxic and asked to renegotiate
terms. Trafigura said shipping delays would mean penalties of at least
250,000 US dollars (£133,000) so handed it over to a disposal company
in Abidjan alongside a "written request that the material should be
safely disposed of, according to country laws, and with all the correct
documentation."
-
- This story is a common one. All down the West Africa
coast, ships registered in America and Europe unload containers filled
with old computers, slops, and used medical equipment. Scrap merchants,
corrupt politicians and underpaid civil servants take charge of this rubbish
and, for a few dollars, will dump them off coastlines and on landfill sites.
-
- Throughout the 1980s, Africa was Europe's most popular
dumping ground, with radioactive waste and toxic chemicals foisted on landowners.
In 1987 an Italian ship dumped a load ofwaste on Koko Beach, Nigeria. Workers
who came into contact with it suffered from chemical burns and partial
paralysis, and began to vomit blood.
-
- Thereafter, the UN drew up plans to regulate the trade
in hazardous waste through the Basel Convention. By 1998, the European
Union had agreed to implement the ban, which prohibited the export of hazardous
wastes from developed countries to the developing world, but the USA, Canada,
Australia and New Zealand refused to sign up;global waterways are still
filled with ships looking to unload their toxic waste.
-
- And now, there is a new threat - the dumping of electronic
waste, or e-waste: unwanted mobile phones, computers and printers, which
contain cadmium, lead, mercury and other poisons. More than 20 million
computers become obsolete in America alone each year.
-
- The UK generates almost 2 million tons of electronic
waste. Disposing of this in America and Europe costs money, so many companies
sell it to middle merchants, who promise the computers can be reused in
Africa, China and India. Each month about 500 container loads, containing
about 400,000 unwanted computers, arrive in Nigeria to be processed. But
75 per cent of units shipped to Nigeria cannot be resold. So they sit on
landfills, and children scrabble barefoot, looking for scraps of copper
wire or nails. And every so often, the plastics are burnt, sending fumes
up into the air.
-
- "There is a tradition of burning rubbish all over
Africa, but this new burning of electronic equipment is incredibly dangerous,"
said Sarah Westervelt of the Basel Action Network, a pressure group that
monitors the trade in hazardous waste. In China, workers burn PVC-coated
wires to get at the copper, and swirl acids in buckets to extract scraps
of gold.
-
- The United Nations Environment Programme estimates that
worldwide, 20 million to 50 million tons of electronics are discarded each
year. Less than 10 per cent gets recycled and half or more ends up overseas.
As Western technology becomes cheaper and the latest machine comes to be
regarded as a disposable fashion statement, this dumping will only intensify.
-
- "Electronic goods are the fastest growing area of
retail," said Liz Parkes, head of waste regulation at the Environment
Agency. "We need to encourage people to think about whether they really
need a new electronic item, and to consider what happens to the goods they
throw out."
-
- Where does our rubbish go?
-
- * Inspections of 18 European ports in 2005 found that
47 per cent of all waste destined for export was in fact illegal. (Greenpeace)
-
- * In 1993, there were two million tons of waste crossing
the globe. By 2001, it had risen to 8.5 million. (UN)
-
- * UK households throw away 93 million pieces of electrical
equipment a year - about four items per household. Many of these end up
in West Africa, India or China. (Industry Council for Electronic Equipment
Recycling)
-
- * There are more than 20 million redundant mobile phones
in the UK. (Industry Council for Electronic Equipment Recycling)
-
- * From next summer, manufacturers and importers of electrical
goods will have to take responsibility for collecting and reusing old or
outdated equipment. (Defra)
-
- * It is illegal to ship hazardous waste out of Europe,
but old electronic items can be sent to developing countries for "recycling".
(Defra)
-
-
- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article1640485.ece
-
-
- From Patricia Doyle, PhD
- 4-10-5
-
- Hello, Jeff - This is just so sad. Africa, a queen of
continents, its natural beauty and resources in delicate balance of nature
is being used by the western world as a toxic waste dump.
-
- These corporations must be held accoundtable and given
the severest of penalties. Each CEO and his team of thugs should be held
criminally responsible. In my opinion, this rates as a war crime.
-
- Is there any wonder that diseases are spreading and mutating
in Africa? Is there any question about the loss of animal populations going
extinct at a stunning rate?
-
- This is all beyond tragic and I hold, not the UK alone
responsible, but all of the Western nations and their globalist corporate
masters.
-
- It all boils down to is greed, bribes...and complacency.
There must be disclosure of the companies doing this dumping and then,
we, the consumer, must step up to the plate. We must NOT BUY FROM THE
POLLUTERS. Simple as that. There needs to be public disclosure and a
list of offenders and then the consumer must make the ultimate choice.
We simply do not buy from polluters. IF that means higher prices from
non-polluters then so be it. We buy too much anyway. Why do we need new
TV sets, radios, and a constant flow of electronic devices? Many Americans
can't even understand how to fully use them in the first place. I have
buttons on my electronic equipment that I don't use...don't know how to.
About 80% of Americans can't even program their own VCRs. Our TV set
is over 30 years old and turns on and off without a remote. No fancy features
but it works fine. It is time to say no more. This is a horrid story and
all of us must take a stand.
-
- Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD
- Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics
- Univ of West Indies
-
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php
- Also my new website:
- http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
|
