Obsolete pesticide dumped in Nepal being cleaned up by Greenpeace activists
Today activists finished containing six tonnes of dangerous
obsolete pesticides exported by the world's biggest chemical
companies to the Himalayan Kingdom of Nepal and made the entire
stockpile safe and ready for sea transport. Several local
non-government organisations and our activists tied a banner
reading "Toxic Free Nepal" around the warehouse in Kathmandu where
the poisons are contained.
"It's time for the chemical industry to move beyond 'responsible
care' rhetoric and take genuine responsibility for its products
from cradle to grave. Greenpeace is inviting the companies that
made these pesticides to come and retrieve this toxic waste and
dispose of it safely in the country of origin," said Greenpeace
toxic trade expert, Andreas Bernstorff.
More than a dozen activists from India, Germany, Switzerland and
the Netherlands, together with Nepalese agricultural technicians,
started cleaning up the toxic waste, that had been abandoned in
dangerous conditions on the outskirts of Kathmandu, three months
ago and completed it this month.
Approximately one third of the waste is pesticides manufactured
by Bayer and Shell; the remainder were made by Union Carbide (Dow),
Sumitomo, Sandoz, Rhone Poulenc (now Bayer), Du Pont and Monsanto,
amongst other companies. The deadly substances found in Kathmandu
were donated to Nepal by Western companies or channelled through
international aid mechanisms over twenty five years ago. The site
is one of several locations in Nepal where obsolete pesticides have
piled up as result of oversupply.
Pesticides found at the site in Kathmandu include a highly toxic
chlorinated organomercury compound, Agallol 3, manufactured by
Bayer, which was never registered in Germany. In spite of that,
according the Nepalese officials, these consignments were sent to
Nepal around 1970 in order to open markets. 30 years later, the red
dust from the broken and rotting containers of Bayer's mercury
compounds was contaminating the entire site which is located at the
heart of the drinking water catchment area of Kathmandu.
A recent international treaty (Stockholm Convention) bans the
use of dieldrin globally and calls for the elimination of existing
stocks of these and other chemicals with similar
characteristics.
An estimated 500,000 metric tonnes of obsolete pesticides have
been abandoned world-wide, mainly in developing countries. They are
usually stored in similarly poor conditions, often in residential
areas or even next to schools. Greenpeace is calling on the
industry to compile a full inventory of all stockpiles of obsolete
pesticides around the globe and to take full logistical, technical
and financial responsibility for their retrieval and safe disposal,
in line with the regulations of the Stockholm Convention.