ENVIRONMENT-MOZAMBIQUE: Campaigners Halt Danish-Funded Project

By Mercedes Sayagues Reprint | | Print |

Mercedes Sayagues

MAPUTO, Jun 12 1999 (IPS) - Environmental and community activists have succeeded in halting a controversial Danish-funded project to burn obsolete pesticides at a cement factory in Matola, 15 kms from the Mozambican capital of Maputo.

Critics argue that toxic waste incineration is contested in developed countries because, even under optimum safety conditions, cancer-causing compounds (dioxin and furans) are released into the air and into the food chain, while factory workers risk contamination.

The kiln in Matola, dating to colonial times, has a poor pollution and worker safety record. Just last month, it emitted thick dust for 40 minutes because its electrofilters malfunctioned.

Danida, the project backer, says it will help Mozambique create a national capability for toxic waste disposal, while getting rid of 500 tonnes of expired pesticides collected from all over the country. Of these, 42 tonnes contain products banned worldwide, ranked as class 1, the most dangerous.

Danida would pay a Danish firm, ‘Monberg and Thorsen’ to set up a waste treatment station in Matola. MGF, a Danish firm, did the environmental impact assessment. The project’s total cost is 8.8 million US Dollars.

As news of the project appeared in the local press, a pressure group of green activists and residents sprang up to fight it. Its name is Livaningo, which means “to shed light” in Shangaan language.

Livaningo pressed for an independent environmental study, which was carried out earlier this year by consultant firm ‘Impacto’ with the British firm ‘Environmental Resources Management’ and the South African-based ‘Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’.

The study criticised Danida for not considering less risky and less polluting options to incineration, such as exporting to waste treatment stations with a track record of safety or non- combustion chemical detoxification.

It would cost 2.2 million US Dollars to return 200 tonnes to the original producers, ‘Bayer’ and ‘Zeneca’, and to send the remainder to a waste station in neighbouring South Africa.

The study also criticised the place chosen to store the pesticides and set up the waste station, an old warehouse of agricultural company ‘Boror’.

The site was contaminated by previous hazardous storage, was not de-contaminated, and sits in the middle of houses, shops and factories. Toxic leakage could filter into water pipes and the underground water table.

Livaningo worries about unsafe storage. Antonio Reina, regional director of the Endangered Wildlife Foundation, says that drums leak and are unlabelled, some have exploded with heat and that, because of lax security, neighbours can obtain drums to carry water.

In May, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warned about the danger posed by poor storage of obsolete pesticides in developing countries. Metal drums are corroding and leaking, and could contaminate irrigation and drinking water, said FAO.

A Danida official contacted by IPS in Maputo declined to comment on the storage and the environmental studies. Danida counselor Peter Larsen only said: “The decision is in the hands of the Mozambican government and we will abide by it, but we stand by our study.”

Livaningo complains that such has been Danida’s attitude throughout. “Their arrogance is astonishing,” says Reina.

For months Danida refused to meet Livaningo, until they threatened a sit-in at the posh Polana hotel where Danida auditors were staying.

In October, Livaningo sent a member to explain its objections to the Danish Parliament and press. The international watchdog ‘Greenpeace’ began a lobbying campaign. It sent two toxic waste experts to Maputo last year to meet Livaningo and Matola’s community leaders. Danida did not attend their press conference.

“The coalition of environmental organisations has tried in vain for several months to alert (Danish) development minister Poul Nielson to their concerns that the incinerator and waste station are unnecessary, highly polluting and would be a likely magnet for international hazardous waste traffickers,” says Greenpeace.

In the process, it was discovered that the Mozambican government had authorised in 1996 an obscure company called International Waste Group Mozambique to import hazardous waste. This contravenes three international conventions — Bamako, Lome IV and Basel — against dumping toxic substances in poor countries. The authorisation has since been revoked.

The Mozambican Ministry for environmental coordination (MICOA) has been more open than Danida. It agreed to the second study and to have its results discussed in public meetings in Matola and Maputo.

Its position is that Mozambique needs to develop a national capacity to deal with toxic waste.

“Incineration is not the ideal solution but no method is perfectly pollution-free,” says Micoa’s permanent-secretary Francisco Mabjaia. “We found a donor to help us shake off our dependency on foreign countries.”

Mabjaia says the ministry is designing a long-term strategy for toxic waste disposal, starting with an assessment of existing waste.

Reina agrees. “We need a national waste policy for our present and future needs, including the heavy metal waste the proposed Mozal aluminum plant will generate. But burning pesticides in the kiln is not the right solution.”

Matola residents are up in arms over the project. On 15 May, about 60 community leaders, church people and neighbours debated a plan of action, from setting up neighborhood committees to street demonstrations.

This is the first time in Mozambique that civil society challenges the state and a key donor on an environmental project.

Says activist Eduardo Eugenio Nhabonga: “We were shocked when we realised we had not been consulted. But now we are informed and we know we don’t want neither incineration nor storage of pesticides in Matola.”

The project is on hold until the ministry makes a decision.