Toxic Hotspots

But all things come at a price and the civilised world didn't stop to ask the costs, didn't stop to think of what would happen when the 'Bigger, Better, More' philosophy would irretreivably use up resources, if they would irremediably poison the environments. Of course today, there are path-breaking discoveries of clean and sustainable technologies. But to switch to them would involve effort and money, and businesses and shareholders are often unwilling to take even a temporary erosion of their profits.

Growth and the Indian Economy
In India too, we bear the burden of a legacy of unthinking industrialisation. Large, old factories with obsolete and polluting technology rejected by the 'developed' world found a place in India, as governments accept them eagerly, looking for ever-larger profits and 'growth'.

But does this growth translate to a better life for the citizens? Are these profit-making technologies sustainable in the long run? Or will they simply use up and poison our natural resources, our forests, our waters, our soil, and kill forever the many species of creatures that inhabit the world along with us?

A Thousand Bhopals All Over India!!
Greenpeace has identified several hotspots of toxic industrial pollution in India. These are areas where industries have severely and perhaps permanently damaged their surrounding environments. These are areas where burgeoning industries have dispersed their poisons into the air, groundwater, rivers, agricultural land... ruining the health and livelihoods of thousands of people and destroying the local flora and fauna. Often, these are areas where companies have endangered the lives of their workers and the local community, exposing them to hazardous substances without any training or safety equipment.

Over years of investigations, working with communities in some of these areas, and sampling the environment for toxins, we have realized that most of these places are Bhopal-like tragedies evolving in slow motion. Toxins like heavy metals and POPs, are building up in the environment and in the bodies of all creatures. There are severe and long-term impacts on human health. Local communities experience the damage, but they often do not have the knowledge or the means to define or measure it, leave alone to remedy it.

We know that all these industrial toxic hotspots are dominated by rich MNC's and big Indian business houses who consider themselves accountable to none, who have manipulated laws, and purchased from pliant bureaucracies the right to contaminate this country and its people in the name of development.

The Jatha!
In 2002, Greenpeace India went on a Jatha, a bus tour that travelled across 25 toxics hotspots in India. We met with local communities, held public hearings, spoke in schools, colleges and on the streets. Diverse NGO's, people's movements, and concerned professionals working on the issue of toxic pollution and community health came together. The highlight of the Jatha was engaging with local organizations, common people, government officials and industries, through a series of creative and innovative actions and protests, to highlight the plight of communities living on the brink of disaster. The tour also served as a meeting point for communities, local organisations and concerned citizens to connect and pool their resources in order to effect change. The discovery was that there were not many stories, but the same deadly story unravelling in many different places in the country.

CHESS (Community Health Environmental Survey Skillshare)

The effects of pollution on human health emerged as a critical crisis and also as a point of mobilisation. The Community Health Cell, Thanal, CorpWatch & Greenpeace organised CHESS, a forum for sharing skills and information in the area of threats to the health from industrial pollution. CHESS brought together health professionals, community representatives, NGO's working on local issues, lawyers, and consumer groups. Due to meet again in August 2004, its aims include
· Equipping communities and campaigners to perform community health surveys
· Using the results to empower themselves and assert their 'right to know'
· Ensuring the results are used to force the polluters to pay for damages, which include clean ups and compensation for people's health problems.

Citizens' Right to Know Kit
What allows industries to dump deadly toxins into the environment with impunity? What makes it possible for government officials to blindly follow the instructions of rich businesses? One part of the story is greed and lack of ethics. Another part of the story is that communities and citizens are unaware of national legislation on environmental or health safeguards. They are unaware that they indeed have a right to know about decisions being made in their country and about their localities.

Legal action can be effectively used to check governments and industries, but this can happen when ordinary people know the law better than they do, when they know we can take them to court and win, when we can prove that they are violating regulations.

Greenpeace created the Citizen's Right to Know Kit along with OHSC, based on the simple and strong belief that an individual can make a difference. The kit familiarises readers with the basic legal framework regulating the operation of industries and the obligations of the Government of India. The first part of the kit elaborates and simplifies some essential Indian laws. Each law is supported by an instantly usable 'tool' with which one can engage with the government or legal authorities. A special emphasis is laid on the Freedom of Information Bill.

The kit also looks at those International Laws that India is a party/signatory to, and includes tools for action that can help communities conduct an effective campaign that will involve people, the media and the government.

The CRTK kit is under production in Hindi and Telugu. This way the kit can be used by the very communities that are under threat, to stand up for their rights and safeguard their futures.