Greenpeace Press Release

The mercury used in the factory is imported, from U.S. companies such as Bethlehem Apparatus and the entire thermometer production is reportedly exported to the U.S., for sale at home and abroad in Germany, UK, Spain, Australia and Canada. In addition, Cheseborough Ponds relocated its factory in the United States to India in 1977 and became Ponds India Ltd.

Greenpeace and Palni Hills Conservation Council (PHCC) also discovered mercury contaminated wastes from Hindustan Lever, a subsidiary of Unilever, dumped behind the factory wall onto the slopes leading to the Pambar Shola (forest). The Pambar Shola is one of the last remaining pockets of bio-diversity in this region.Tropical plant species, endemic to the area are threatened by the toxic pollution from Hindustan Unilever.

At the factory, the highly hazardous mercury-bearing wastes are stored haphazardly in open and torn sacks, with the contents spilled onto the workspace, frequented by barefooted, unprotected workers. Reports gathered from several workers indicate serious health effects including a variety of neural disorders, tremors, infertility and loss of appetite.

According to the waste merchant at the dumpsite, children with bare feet and hands recovered half a liter of mercury, while a local merchant purchased broken thermometers containing hazardous waste for under five cents per kilo. Many of the broken thermometers were stamped with Baxter or Medline, two U.S. medical product suppliers.

Mercury in highly poisonous and exposure to even a small amount through air, water or skin exerts severeeffects on the central nervous system and kidneys.

"All that talk about industry having learned a lesson from Bhopal is nonsense,” said Navroz Mody,Greenpeace's Toxics Campaigner, “Hindustan Lever and U.S. companies like Cheseborough Ponds,Baxter, Medline and Bethlehem Apparatus should be held criminally and financially liable. Hindustan Lever must end the use of mercury in the factory, clean up the dump-site and compensate the workforce in the plant for occupational health effects from mercury.”

Contact: Navroz Mody, +91 4542-40286; navroz.mody@dialb.greenpeace.org R. Kannan, Palni Hills Conservation Council +91 4542- 40157; kanan@vsnl.com Lisa Finaldi (Washington, D.C. office) 202-461-1177

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Backgrounder

In 1977, a second-hand mercury thermometer factory owned by Cheseborough Ponds was exported from the U.S.and bought by Ponds India Ltd. It was located in the southern Indian tourist town of Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu.The town is a famous hill resort and host to a few dozen boarding schools.

The thermometer factory changed hands in 1997, when Hindustan Lever bought it from Ponds India Ltd. HindustanLever is 51% owned by Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever. According to Hindustan Lever, mercury for thethermometers is imported primarily from the United States then the finished thermometers are exported back to theUnited States and further distributed to markets in Germany, the UK, Australia, Spain and Canada.

The factory is situated at an altitude of 2000 meters amidst the flourishing tropical montane forest of the WesternGhats, one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. To the east of the factory wall, the land slopes steeply to the Pambar Sholaforest, which was recently designated a sanctuary by the Tamilnadu Government. The company secured a specialexemption from the Thamilnadu government to establish it on the ridge of Pambar shola slope on grounds thatthe factory is non-polluting.

This extremely bio-diverse Shola, now shrunk to less than 3 kms in circumference, is witnessing the last-ditch battle forsurvival by a number of plant species, the last sentinels of a bygone age. The past has been glorious; several plantspecies found in the area have been described as new to science. But the development activities of recent decadeshave depleted its species richness and some are already extinct.

The Pambar stream runs through the forests below the back wall of the mercury thermometer factory and flows downto the Kumbhakarai waterfalls, a popular tourist bathing site. Below the waterfalls, the stream continues to meetthe canals flowing from the Vaigai dam. The slopes where the wastes are dumped are part of the Pambar sholawatershed, draining water through the Pambar River which eventually ends up in the plains leading up to thetemple city of Madurai.

Over the years, these slopes have been used by the factory management as a dumping ground for all kinds of wastes,including broken mercury-containing thermometers and other potentially mercury-contaminated wastes. Until afew years ago, the factory used to manufacture half a million thermometers annually. However, production is reportedto have fallen owing to declining demand in Western markets where environmental and public health concernsover mercury have led to the replacement of products such as mercury thermometers with non-mercurythermometers.

FACTS ABOUT MERCURY (Hg)

Although probably best known as the silver liquid in thermometers, mercury has over 3,000 industrial uses. Mercuryand its compounds are widely distributed in the environment as a result of both natural and man-madeactivities. The utility, and the toxicity, of mercury have been known for centuries. Mercury occurs naturally in theenvironment as mercuric sulfide, also known as cinnabar. Cinnabar has been refined for its mercury content sincethe 15th or 16th century B.C. Mercury is present in numerous chemical forms. Elemental mercury itself is toxic and cannotbe broken down into less hazardous compounds.

USES OF MERCURY

Desirable properties such as the ability to alloy with most metals, liquidity at room temperature, ease of vaporising andfreezing, and electrical conductivity make mercury an important industrial metal. In 1973, U.S. consumption ofmercury was 1900 metric tons. It is used primarily in battery manufacturing and chlorine-alkali production as well asin paints and industrial instruments. Until paint manufacturers agreed to eliminate the use of mercury in interior paints,480,000 pounds of mercury in paints and coatings were produced each year. Elemental or inorganic forms canbe transformed into organic (especially methylated) forms by biological systems (i.e. when it comes into contactwith micro organisms in soil or water).

HEALTH EFFECTS AND TOXICITY OF MERCURY

Humans come in contact with mercury through environmental, occupational or accidental exposure scenarios. Not onlyare methylated mercury compounds toxic, but they can accumulate in the environment and food chain.

Mercury biomagnifies up to 100,000 times in predatory fish. The consumption of methylated mercury contaminated fishled to the poisoning of Japanese fisherman and their families in Minamata, Japan, in the 1950s. The US Food andDrug Administration (FDA) recommends that pregnant women and those who may become pregnant avoid eatingshark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tile fish known to contain elevated levels of methyl mercury, an organic formof mercury that can accumulate in the food chain.

Workplace exposure to mercury occurs through inhalation of contaminated air, direct skin contact with liquid mercury,or oral exposure through contaminated hands or food.

Mercury may cause acute or chronic health effects. In the human body, it accumulates in the kidney, brain, and blood.The amount of mercury absorbed by the body - and thus the degree of toxicity - is dependent upon its chemicalform. Elemental mercury, the form of exposure to workers involved with mercury-containing instrumentaccidents, is most hazardous when inhaled. Only about 25% of an inhaled dose is exhaled.

To date, more than 40 US states and the Food and Drug Administration have adopted at least 2,073 public healthadvisories warning about mercury contamination. In addition, several states and large municipalities - mostlylocated in the Northeast - are cracking down on the amount of mercury in the environment by outlawing mercurythermometers, which, some say, could render drinking water supplies unusable if even one thermometercontaminates a source.