SUNS  4360  Tuesday  26  January  1999

Washington, Jan 22 (IPS/Danielle Knight) -- A coalition of environmental groups want hazardous mercury waste sent during apartheid to South Africa by U.S. corporations to be returned to the United States.

Starting in the 1980s, American Cyanamid, Louisiana-based Borden Chemicals and Plastics, and other corporations sent waste containing mercury to Cato-Ridge, located in South Africa's eastern province of Kwazulu-Natal. The material was sent to a plant owned and operated by a British firm, Thor Chemical, to be reprocessed into usable mercury.

In 1994, after several workers at the British plant died from mercury poisoning and environmental contamination was reported, the South African government prohibited the plant from operating. Since then, the stockpiled waste has been sitting on the property, leaking toxic chemicals. "This is a classic case of industrialised nations sending their unwanted hazardous waste to developing countries," says Heeten Kalan, director of the Boston-based South Africa Exchange Programme on Environmental Justice.

Environmental watchdogs, including Greenpeace and the U.S.- based Sierra Club, say U.S. companies should not be allowed to export waste that poisons people and environments in other countries. "These atrocious crimes need to be brought to justice," says Kalan.
After several government inquiries on the safety of the plant and its impact on the surrounding environment, South African officials are now deciding what to do with the stockpiled chemicals.

In the meantime, the mercury waste that would have been reprocessed is sitting in steel barrels and leaking hazardous toxins which could further contaminate the soil and a nearby river used for fishing and swimming by local residents, say environmentalists.

In 1990, when the plant was still in operation, Greenpeace found high levels of mercury in the river several miles from the plant. Samples of sediment at the head of the river near the plant contained more than 8,000 times the U.S. standard for classifying a waste as hazardous, says the environmental group.

The coalition is focusing its pressure on the Louisiana-based company, Borden Chemicals and Plastics, which sent about 2,500 drums of mercury waste to South Africa between 1991 and 1994.

Borden was charged in 1994 with shipping over 300,000 pounds of hazardous waste to South Africa without notifying the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as required by law. The company agreed to a seven-million dollar settlement in April last year, which included $3.6 million in fines, in combination with other charges of regulatory violations.

Environmentalists are urging the U.S. Assistant Attorney's office to press forward with a criminal investigation of Borden that would perhaps force the company to take back the chemicals it sent to South Africa. The statute of limitations, or expiry date, for filing such a federal suit is Jan. 27.

"Borden and the U.S. government are partly responsible for the toxic catastrophe at Thor in South Africa," says Kenny Bruno, a toxins specialist with Greenpeace. "The case against Borden is one of the only hopes we have to protect the South African environment from massive mercury contamination."

In a written statement released by Borden to IPS, the company says it chose the more expensive route of reprocessing the chemicals because it was the best environmental practice. It says when it became aware 1994 that some of the material it sent had been stockpiled instead of reprocessed, the company recalled a shipment in transit.

But it says the remaining chemicals at the site are now owned by Thor, even if they originated from Borden.

"It is our understanding from press reports that Thor is working with the government on reprocessing that and other materials they have on site, but that really is something best addressed by Thor Chemical or the South African government," says the statement.

Environmentalists fear that government officials are considering having the company incinerate the waste. The group says this would only contaminate the surrounding area with airborne mercury and toxic chemicals known as dioxins.

"Using incineration to tackle mercury contaminated waste is highly problematic because mercury is an element and cannot be destroyed and comes out the stack as a gas," says Paul Connett, a chemistry professor at St. Lawrence University in New York. Connett, who specializes in hazardous waste, recently visited the site.

Michael Bender, executive director of the Mercury Policy Project, adds that when mercury is airborne it travels long distances, sometimes contaminating ocean and overseas environments.

Barrie Longden, the managing director of Thor Chemical's South African facility, told IPS that it would be inappropriate to comment at this time since the South African government is currently deciding how to proceed with the chemicals.

But, he said that the mercury-recovery process was a safe and effective method and that the stockpiled chemicals were regularly inspected and not leaking. He added that sending the chemicals back to the companies they came from would not get most of the waste out of South Africa because more than half of the drums came from South African companies.

While environmentalists continue urging that the waste be returned, Connett says the stockpiled chemicals need to be moved out of the old drums and into proper storage facilities as soon as possible in order to avoid further contamination. He also says corporations should be prohibited from producing chemicals they cannot safely dispose of.

"If you cannot look after this waste yourself, you should'nt be making it," says Connett. "You've got to reexamine your manufacturing processes so that you don't produce waste that your own citizens can't deal with and then solve the problem by exploiting other countries and other communities, which is clearly happening in this case."


Australia: Visa rules add bite to Asian crisis

Darwin, Jan 24 (IPS/Sonny Inbaraj ) - Asia's economic crisis has indeed caused its tourists to shy away from Australia, but critics say the country's insensitive visa rules and ill-designed promotions are not helping ease the tourism industry's woes.

Figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics this  week revealed the blow the tourism industry has suffered from the  regional crisis: the country lost estimated tourist earnings of $426.3 million. This occurred despite increased business from the United States  and Europe last year. Likewise, the bureau said overall tourist arrivals had fallen by 4.2% in the 11 months to November last year.

Malaysia and Indonesia, the bureau said, had the largest  declines of the top 10 source countries with falls of 23% and 45% respectively. The bureau figures also indicated that last year there was a 7%  fall in visitor numbers from recession-hit Japan, the country with the largest source of tourists to Australia.

But beyond the expected effects that come with shrinking  incomes among Asians, some Australian officials and travel agents say part of the tourism slowdown should be blamed on Australia itself. The Tourism Task Force chief executive, Christopher Brown,  blamed the Department of Immigration for scaring away Asian visitors and said the bureaucracy was "insulting" them.

"The Tourism Forecasting Council fearlessly predicted that  1998 would see a 24% growth in tourists from China -- potentially the world's largest tourism market. A year later we find a 13% drop," he pointed out.

"While there may be a number of reasons for that drop, the  imposition by immigration of the insulting $50 (Australian) visa fee ($32 U.S.) and its even more insulting application form, cannot have helped," he said.

The Immigration Department says the visa fee and the claimed "insulting" application form were necessary to screen visitors  wanting to enter Australia.

Acting Secretary of Immigration Mark Sullivan said gangs in  China, the Middle East and Asia were trafficking in false documents, and then advising travellers to pose as refugees on arrival.

"We think we are dampening the trend. Getting to Australia is  being made more difficult," said Sullivan.

But tour operators here warn that the immigration department is  failing to see the forest from the trees. "These policies will just put off bona fide Asian tourists," said a Darwin travel agent.

"Australia has already got a bad name in Vietnam for  attempting to refuse entry to the country's best puppeteer troupe to perform at the Sydney Festival at the start of the year. Do we want to tarnish that image further?" he asked.

He was referring to the Australian government's denial of visas  for the Thang Long Water Puppeteers, when they lodged their applications last year to perform at the Sydney Festival in January.

The Sydney Festival committee then lashed out publicly at  Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, saying such an action would be perceived very badly in Asia.

Because of strong public pressure and the Sydney Festival  taking their case to the media, the minister recanted his earlier statement that some of the puppeteers "were not part of a legitimate troupe". The Thang Long troupe were then issued visas, much to the delight of its fans in Sydney.