Toxic Industrial Waste Dumping

YOU are the Industrial Waste Basket

It is a fact, industries dump waste wherever it is convenient and cheap. They dump waste where there is least resistance against it. Thus, it is always the poor and powerless who have to live with toxic waste. The following case studies exemplify the point.

Industries Frequently Dump Toxic Waste in Economically Weaker Countries

Industries in developed countries, find it hard to dump their toxic wastes in their home countries due to strict environmental laws. Instead, they dump the industrial waste where it is easy, where there is instability in the government, or on ‘developing’ countries. For example:

A London based company, Refigure, used a ship to illegally refine low-grade naphtha with caustic soda, as the process is banned in every country. Currently it carries the toxins it generated during refining which it wants to dump somewhere. It has been looking for places to drop its waste. But fortunately it has been caught in the act on every attempt at dumping the toxins and has been turned away by the victim country each time it tried. Currently it is believed to be headed toward Alang in Gujarat, India, where ‘they’ plan to disassemble it (disassembling a ship is a dangerous, see http://alexiuss.deviantart.com/journal/17919112/? for exactly how hazardous it is). It can only be hoped that it does not manage to commit this hideous crime in a populated location. [1]
Two years ago a US ship, Platinum II carrying 400 tonnes of asbestos and other hazardous wastes was stopped from dumping its waste in Alang. [2]
Similarly, a french ship carrying toxic was prevented from dumping toxic waste in India[2] Who knows where the deadly toxins finally landed.
Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for highly hazardous waste including nuclear waste!! A UNEP spokesperson, Nick Nuttal said

“Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there...

European companies found it to be very cheap to get rid of the waste, costing as little as $2.50 a tonne, where waste disposal costs in Europe are something like $1000 a tonne...

And the waste is [of] many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes – you name it.[3]

Setting-up of an Industry is Followed by The People’s Ruin

-despite what ‘they’ claim

What is the ideal waste dumping ground for a company? The immediate locality of course!
Industries are hailed as a great step for development, they bring employment, money, and prosperity. But let us take a look at what they do to the people near some of the industries. The people whom they ‘benefit’.

Tanneries - Tanneries are highly polluting and generate toxic wastes full of heavy metals.[6] The tanneries in the poor sections of the world openly flout environmental laws and dump toxic waste on the people.[4] They spread their stink for miles around, and cause skin diseases, gastroenteritis, asthma, fever and cough.[4] (the 4rth reference talks about tannery waste in Bangladesh, and the 6th one talks about tannery waste in Pakistan).
Chemical Industries - Chemical industries are probably the leading waste dumpers, and polluters. Industrial effluents from chemical industries can cause many dangerous diseases like cancer. This phenomenon is very prevalent in two of the most industrialised Indian states, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Untreated toxic waste being dumped into rivers, from which people drink water and eat fish, makes life miserable for the people nearby, mostly urban and rural poor. large numbers of dead fish are washed ashore each time a tanker dumps its load of toxic industrial waste.[7] (See the 7th reference for case studies on industrial pollution due to waste from chemical industries)

As you can see the very people who are supposed to be benefited by industries by getting employment are dying of cancer and suffering endless diseases because capitalists wanted to dump industrial toxic waste there to save money. While these can be avoided, capitalists do not have sufficient ‘incentives’ to do so. After all who cares about what happens to ‘somebody else’.[5]

It is seen that, under capitalism, there is always enough capital to transport raw material and finished goods, use high-tech manufacturing techniques and conduct research and development, but it always falls short when it comes to handling toxic industrial waste in a humane way. After all who cares what happens to ‘somebody else’, its money money that they are after.

References:

Economics: A Fresh Approach

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Toxic Industrial Waste Dumping