Feature story - January
6, 2011 - Greenpeace and a broad swath of
civil society groups in Australia and Europe
have successfully prevented solvents and
explosives maker Orica from sailing tonnes
of extremely harmful chemical waste from
Australia to Denmark for incineration. In
response to massive public pressure, the
Danish Government announced on December
23, 2010 that they wouldn't accept the shipment
after all - just 24 hours before it was
due to be loaded with the toxic waste in
Australia.
A toxic legacy in Australia
For years Botany Bay, near Sydney, was a
major manufacturing base for the chemical
firm, ICI. Subsequently, the plant was bought
by the Australian company, Orica Pty Ltd
(a spin-off of ICI). Orica didn't only buy
the bricks and mortar, they also got the
toxic legacy. The Botany site now houses
around 16,000 tonnes of the banned carcinogen
hexachlorobenzene (HCB), as well as another
45,000 tonnes of poisoned soil.
Underground storage
tanks started to crack in the 1980s. And
for the past three decades, toxic and carcinogenic
chlorinated chemicals have been leeching
into the soil. Locals, naturally, are enraged.
In 2006 Orica began
a plan to get rid of its HCB waste stockpile,
under mounting pressure from local residents
and politicians. Handling this sort of waste
responsibly is very costly. And though it
sustains some jobs in hazardous waste management,
companies switching to Clean Production
can save money and create more innovative
jobs and business opportunities in the process.
Alas, Orica planned
to get rid of its toxic problem quite literally
- by putting it on a ship and sending it
25,000 km across the oceans to Europe. Far,
far away, where somebody else could deal
with it.
The Basel Convention,
or: Clean up your own waste
The tonnes-of-banned-carcinogens-across-the-world
shipment from Australia would not only have
been breathtakingly reckless, it would have
been illegal too. The Basel Convention on
the Control of Transboundary Movements of
Hazardous Wastes -- which Greenpeace campaigned
hard to put in place decades ago -- obliges
Australia to deal with its own hazardous
waste.
HCB waste can only be
exported to another OECD country under the
exceptional circumstance where there is
no technology available in-country to treat
and destroy the waste. And the technology
is as feasible in Australia as elsewhere.
Germany says "Nein
danke!", Denmark says "Ja!"
So when Orica applied to Germany to ship
the hazardous waste there, the German authorities
(after much public pressure!) rejected the
application citing its international obligations.
Next, Orica's CEO flew
to Denmark to meet with Danish Government
officials about the country's hazardous
waste incinerating abilities. Shipping thousands
of tonnes of hazardous waste from Australia
to Germany or from Australia to Denmark
is equally far and equally as dangerous.
Still, Danish authorities agreed to participate,
and initially authorised 6,100 tonnes of
Orica's HCB to be shipped to a hazardous
waste incinerator near Nyborg, a city on
Denmark's central island, Funen.
Hands across the sea
(not waste!)
Opposition to the plan from Nyborg residents
grew quickly, and so did international solidarity.
The next few years saw a coordinated effort
of local groups, nature conservation societies,
politicians, dock and transport workers
in both Australia and Europe continue to
grow in numbers and breadth.
Citizens' and organisations'
voices made themselves heard through media
across the world. Even Lebanese TV ran the
story in 2010 of "the little Northern
European country which delights in burning
other peoples' hazardous waste."
Civil society's entire
toolbox was brought to bear, including:
demonstrations, signature collections, letter-writing
to responsible authorities, political meetings
and lobbying, as well as nonviolent direct
actions and (trade union) industrial action.
On December 2, 2010
the Danish Government bowed to public pressure
and officially "postponed a plan"
to accept and incinerate the hazardous waste
from Australia. 21 days later the Danish
Minister for Environment announced that
the deal was off:
It is my political assessment
that we can not accept the waste. As the
situation and the discussion has evolved
with considerable political and popular
resistance, so it seems totally inconceivable
for the ship with HCB waste to arrive in
Nyborg. I have informed [Australian Environment
Minister] Mr Tony Burke.
(translated from this Government statement)
The story doesn't end there. Danish authorities
and Orica might try something dodgy again
in 2011, so we can't let down our guard.
Rather than ship its
waste offshore to Denmark where they're
going to use outdated technology to incinerate
the waste and put toxic chemicals into the
air, Orica should put in place the technology
in Australia and deal with it responsibly.
This article was updated
on January 7th to clarify the Danish Government's
decisions on December 2nd and 23rd.
