Unilever Plant in India to Ship Mercury Waste to Pa. for Disposal
by K.N. Arun, Associated Press
17 April 2003 (Madras, India) –
The Indian subsidiary of multinational giant Unilever is exporting mercury-contaminated glass and mercury waste from its plant in southern India to the United States for safe disposal, company officials said Thursday.
Unilever's Indian subsidiary, Hindustan Lever Ltd., closed its thermometer plant in the tourist town of Kodaikanal in 2001 after environmental activists protested that mercury from the plant had contaminated the soil.
About 290 metric tons of contaminated glass, scrap, thermometers and waste was packed in plastic and stuffed into steel containers and transported to Tuticorin port, 180 miles southeast of the state capital Madras, to be shipped to the United States, said Ashok Gupta, a Hindustan Lever spokesman.
HLL has signed a contract with Hellertown, Pa.-based Bethlehem Apparatus Inc., to dispose of the mercury-tainted material, Gupta said.
Activists said the company shut down the plant only after sustained protests from environment groups, who pressured the state government to act against the company.
As recycling units in India could not handle the mercury contaminated material, the company was advised to export it to some other country where such technology existed, said Sheela Rani Chunkath, who heads Tamil Nadu's pollution control authority.
However, environmental activists were worried that not all the mercury waste would be disposed safely.
"We really don't know how much soil has been contaminated," said Navros Modi, an activist of the environment group, Greenpeace India. "We're still convinced that quite a large quantity of mercury-contaminated glass was sent for local recycling before the whole thing came to light."
Bethlehem Apparatus, a specialist in mercury recycling, says it operates the world's largest commercial mercury recycling facility.
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