Unilever Plant in India to Ship Mercury Waste to U.S. for Disposal
by K.N. Arun, Associated Press
18 April 2003 (Madras, India) –
The Indian subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever plans to export tons of mercury waste from its plant in southern India to the United States for disposal, company officials said Thursday.
Hindustan Lever Ltd. closed down its thermometer plant in Tamil Nadu state in 2001 after environmental activists protested that mercury from the plant had contaminated the soil.
Around 290 metric tons (319 short tons) of glass containing mercury, contaminated scrap, thermometers, and mercury waste had been packed in plastic and stuffed into steel containers for shipment to the United States, said Ashok Gupta, a Hindustan Lever spokesman. Hindustan Lever signed a contract with Pennsylvania-based Bethlehem Apparatus Inc. to dispose of the mercury-tainted material, Gupta said.
He didn't know when the shipment would leave the Tuticorin port, 300 kilometers (180 miles) southeast of the state capital Madras.
Activists said the company shut down the plant only after sustained protests from environment groups. Since India does not have the ability to process the mercury-contaminated material, the company was advised to export it to a country where such technology existed, said Sheela Rani Chunkath, the head of Tamil Nadu's pollution control authority.
However, activists in India were worried that the damage had already been done.
"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."
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