Syngenta Board of Directors
Greenpeace Switzerland is part of a coalition seeking 50,000 guilty verdicts indicting Syngenta for it's super-herbacide, Paraquat. According to Stop-Paraquat.net:
Paraquat is considered the most poisonous herbicide widely in use. As an example: 345 different herbicides are approved for use in Germany and paraquat alone is rated "highly toxic".
But Paraquat is marketed largely in the developing world, where adequate safety and protective measures simply don't exist.
In Vietnam up to 85% of users wear no gloves when they spray, 89% have neither shoes nor boots, 56 % are forced to work with spray equipment that leaks. Masks and protective clothing are often unaffordable or, in the tropics, impractical.
In Costa Rica, one fifth of all pesticide poisonings are caused by paraquat. There, paraquat is the most frequently named pesticide in poisoning incidents at work and in workplace accidents, and also in connection with suicide attempts. However, the vast majority of paraquat victims never appear in any statistic because roughly 90% of all pesticide poisonings are not even recorded in Central America.
Paraquat is acutely toxic and enters the body mainly by swallowing, or through damaged skin, but may also be inhaled. One tablespoon of concentrated paraquat can result in death.
The Swiss agrochemical corporation Syngenta is the world's foremost producer of paraquat. (Syngenta sells it under the trade name Gramoxone). Syngenta sells hundreds of millions of US Dollars worth of paraquat every year. By knowingly marketing their herbicide in countries where experts agree it cannot be safely used, the company is responsible for countless cases of serious or deadly poisoning caused by paraquat.
Submit a guilty verdict for Syngenta and help efforts to stop production and distribution of this killer herbacide. More than 25,000 people have already signed on.