Filipinos march along the streets of the Makati Business District, demanding the immediate re-exportation of the 50 Canadian container vans filled with hazardous wastes currently festering in Manila’s port. Credit: Courtesy Diana Mendoza

By Diana Mendoza
MANILA, Mar 15 2015 (IPS)

Filipino Catholic priest and activist Reverend Father Robert Reyes, dubbed by media as the “running priest”, joined a protest of environmental and public health activists last week by running along the streets of the Makati Business District, the Philippines’ financial capital, to urge the government to immediately re-export the 50 Canadian containers filled with hazardous wastes that have been in the Port of Manila for 600 days now.

Along with the groups BAN Toxics, Ecowaste Coalition and Greenpeace, Reyes staged BasuRUN, a name derived from the Filipino word ‘basura’, which means trash or waste.

“We need to send a clear signal to the rest of the world that the Philippines is not a dumping ground for Canada’s [or any other country’s] toxic waste.” -- Antonio La Vina, dean of the Ateneo School of Government
“These toxic wastes are the worst forms of expressing friendship between our two countries,” said the politically active and socially conscious Reyes.

Although praised by activists but criticised by the Filipino Catholic bishops, Reyes’ latest run, which ended across the Canadian Embassy located in the financial district, added another voice to the call for Canada to take responsibility for its “overstaying” toxic shipment in the Philippines.

“Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government is an embarrassment to the civic-minded and environmentally conscious Canadians,” said Reyes. “We know this is not the real Canada. We urge Prime Minister Harper to take immediate action. Take back your illegal waste shipment now,” he stressed.

In June 2013, the Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) seized 50 container vans carrying various hazardous household waste and toxic materials imported from Canada, with the consignee Chronic Plastics, Inc., declaring the shipment as “assorted scrap plastic materials for recycling”.

When questioned by activists, Canada said that it does not have any legal capacity to compel the Canada-based private corporation to re-export the shipment.

Richard Gutierrez, executive director of BAN Toxics, told IPS the shipment should be re-exported in accordance with the Basel Convention, an international treaty signed in 1982 with 182 parties as of 2015 that regulates toxic waste shipments.

The Basel Convention prohibits illegal toxic waste trade and requires the exporting country, in this case Canada, to take back illegally seized shipments and pay the costs for the return.

Both Canada and the Philippines are parties to the Basel Convention, but Canada has yet to respond to calls for the re-exportation of the shipment under its obligation under international law.

“Canada’s refusal to take back the illegal shipment is a blatant violation of its obligation under Basel,” Gutierrez added. “Toxic waste trade is also not simply an issue of trade or business among private individuals or companies. At its very core is the respect for human dignity. It is about protecting the right to life and health. Dumping of toxic waste is anathema to human rights.”

He said the importation also violates a number of local laws such as the Administrative Order 28 (Interim Guidelines for the Importation of Recyclable Materials Containing Hazardous Substances) of the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Republic Act 9003 or the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000.

BAN Toxics said the Philippine government is spending at least 144,000 pesos (about 3,000 dollars) a day for the loss of income from storage space and an additional 87 million pesos (about 1.9 million dollars) in demurrage costs to the ship’s owners.

Other activist groups in the struggle include Mother Earth Foundation, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, and ‘Ang Nars’, a party-list group of Filipino nurses who staged protests last year.

Harmful to health, environment, dignity

Abigail Aguilar, toxics campaigner for Greenpeace, expressed shock that the waste is still festering in a Filipino port after nearly two years.

“How the Canadian government finds the dignity to let this linger on for more than 600 days is despicable and sickening. It is best that it takes it back and not let the Filipinos suffer. [That] is the moral thing to do,” Aguilar told IPS.

Baskut Tuncak, the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights and toxic wastes, has called out to rich countries to respect human rights by ceasing the export of garbage and toxic wastes to poorer countries.

“The international transfer of toxic wastes to developing countries has repeatedly violated the human rights of people who are often in most vulnerable situations, and contravened the principles of equality and non-discrimination,” the rapporteur said earlier this year.

Tuncak said that without the correct precautions, the transfer of toxic waste is harmful to the environment and to the health of human beings, adding, “Unbridled toxic waste trade often takes place to exploit differences in the cost of labour and enforcement of laws including environmental protection.”

A 2010 study published by the U.S.-government supported scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) revealed that chemical pollutants from toxic waste sites in India, the Philippines, and Indonesia “put over eight million persons at risk [of] disease, disability, and early deaths from exposure to industrial contaminants in 2010, creating a loss of 828,722 years of good health,” identified in the study as disability-adjusted life years.

The study said that the wastes in question contained an assortment of “toxic metals such as mercury, lead, and cadmium.”

A 2014 study by Ban Toxics and the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government said toxic wastes from other countries have exposed Filipinos to a number of health and environmental risks, such as hazardous e-waste and medical and clinic garbage that include a toxic brew of mercury, lead, cadmium, Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDEs) and Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBBs).

Antonio La Vina, dean of the Ateneo School of Government, said, “We need to send a clear signal to the rest of the world that the Philippines is not a dumping ground for Canada’s [or any other country’s] toxic waste.”

He said the Canadian waste is but a symptom of a bigger problem, namely: as long as the Philippines dodges ratification of the Basel Ban Amendment, which prohibits the importation of hazardous waste from developed to lesser developed countries, it will continue to be viewed and treated as a dumping ground.

The shipment currently sitting in Manila’s port was initially described as recyclable material, but Greenpeace reports that the containers are also holding hospital waste, used adult diapers, and sanitary napkins.

Leachate from these containers, or liquid that has percolated through a solid, threaten the surrounding environment, posing great risk to human health in the area. Manila currently has a population of 1.6 million people.

An open petition on Change.org urging the Canadian government to assume full responsibility of the waste shipment already has 25,000 signatures and expects more.

According to the U.N. Commodity Trade Statistics database (UN Comtrade), 4.7 million tons of hazardous waste were shipped by developed to lesser developed countries between 1998 and 2008.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Gaucho dancers at the Pollution Festival in Bouwer, Argentina. Courtesy of Bouwer Sin Basura

By Fabiana Frayssinet
BOUWER, Argentina, Mar 14 2014 (IPS)

While the magnificent samba schools of Brazil were getting ready for the grand carnival in Rio de Janeiro, a modest carnival troupe toured a small Argentine town to draw attention to an urban problem that has brought the central province of Córdoba to the brink of environmental disaster: garbage.

Some 2,300 kilometres away from Rio de Janeiro, a murga (band of street musicians) named Colour and Joy gathered at the foot of a replica of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue in the Cordoban town of Bouwer.

But this town of 2,000 people bears a different cross.“It is no coincidence that waste is dumped in the poorest towns around Córdoba.” -- Cintia Frencia, a provincial lawmaker for the leftwing Workers Party

After a long struggle to close an open sky rubbish dump with an accumulated 12 million tonnes of garbage that finally succeeded in 2010, Bouwer is once again facing the prospect of another waste tip being opened, which would exacerbate chronic pollution in the area.

Twenty-four million tonnes of rubbish generated by the provincial capital and other municipalities over the next 30 years may be deposited on 270 hectares of land only 600 metres away from the old dump.

“Carnival should be for the people, and today we are here to raise awareness about what is happening with the garbage,” Sergio Moggi, the head of the murga, which is made up of children and teenagers, told IPS.

The Colour and Joy murga was one of the attractions at the Festival de la Contaminación (Pollution Festival) organised by residents to call attention to their plight.

One of the criteria for choosing the location for the new dump was the land value, and this counted against Bouwer because of its poverty.

The town is also burdened with the nearby remains of a lead smelter, a storage facility for toxic waste and a vehicle pound, and there is constant spraying of pesticides on the surrounding plantations.

The Environment Defence Foundation (FUNAM) regards Bouwer as “one of the most polluted zones of Argentina.” The large number of sources of pollution and the alarming perinatal and child mortality rates led this municipality to declare a “public health emergency.”

“In the summertime, every town in Córdoba holds a festival to celebrate something typical that represents it: salami, potatoes, and so on. Our characteristic feature, unfortunately, is garbage,” teacher Daniela Arce, of Bouwer Sin Basura (Garbage-Free Bouwer), a local residents’ association, told IPS.

Musicians of the Colour and Joy group tuning drum heads next to a replica of the statue of Christ the Redeemer. Credit: Fabiana Frayssinet/IPS

But Bouwer’s problems are shared by this province, which has extensive fertile plains in the east and the Sierras de Córdoba mountain chains in the west.

The capital city, Córdoba, and 16 smaller surrounding municipalities generate some 2,200 tonnes of solid waste a day, according to the inter-municipal corporation for sustainable waste management in the Córdoba metropolitan area (CORMECOR), a public limited company that is studying technical alternatives for the handling and ultimate disposal of waste from the greater Córdoba area.

“The problem calls for waste treatment technology and a space for its disposal, and so far has not been handled in an integrated way,” says CORMECOR’s website.

The main shareholders of CORMECOR are the city of Córdoba, nine other municipalities and the garbage collectors’ union.

The normal practice was to bury garbage or dump it in open sky pits until 1981, when it began to be sent to the Bouwer tip.

Since that closed in 2010 – and it still contains 30 years’ worth of rubbish – waste has been taken to a temporary dump in Piedras Blancas, hastily made ready in less than two months and located beside national route 36, only five kilometres away from Bouwer.

Piedras Blancas has received 2,500 tonnes a day since 2010, when its estimated useful life was declared to be one year. According to the authorities it is now on the verge of collapse.

“The garbage is deposited and crushed daily, and earth is spread on top of it at the end of each day. The gases are vented, without being captured or treated; the liquid leached from decomposition of organic material is not treated either,” Nayla Azzinnari, FUNAM’s press officer, told IPS.

Now the provincial government is preparing to expropriate two pieces of land for the new project: one near the unfortunate Bouwer and another, for a transfer station, near the town of Estación Juárez Celman in the centre-north of the province.

CORMECOR is analysing proposals for waste treatment from 27 companies (from Argentina, the Netherlands, the United States and Brazil) and universities, while the people who have had the problem dumped on them have some answers of their own.

“Every town should look after its own rubbish. The Córdoba municipality should look after its waste, and so should the other municipalities,” the mayor of Bouwer, Juan Lupi, told IPS.

Bouwer produces less than half a truckload of waste a week, while the capital contributes 95 percent of the total.

In the view of biologist Ricardo Suárez, a technical adviser for local people in Bouwer, garbage should be tracked back to its origins. “Our problem is out of all proportion,” he complained.

The executive, legislative and judicial branches should take action to moderate consumption and persuade companies to sell their products with less throw-away packaging, he suggested.

The justice system should punish environmental crimes, such as failure to process waste, and municipalities should invest heavily in separation and recycling programmes and educate citizens in these new habits.

“We could achieve really low, tolerable limits [of pollution]. What we cannot accept is 12 million tonnes of garbage buried in one place, as we have now,” Suárez said.

To accomplish this, waste management must be “decentralised,” so that there are no more “sacrificed zones” like Bouwer, he told IPS.

“The first thing to do is to sit down and study the problem, and not to underestimate waste,” said chemical engineer Eduardo Riaño, who has analysed the effects of the gas and liquid emissions in Bouwer, which persist decades after the dumps were closed.

“Volatile organic compounds are very dangerous” and can cause cancer, he told IPS.

On the other hand, these deposits of organic material can be used to generate energy.

The amount of biogas emitted by the Bouwer garbage dump “until it was closed in 2010 was equivalent to one and a half years of domestic gas use, and two and a half years of compressed natural gas” for the local population , he said.

In the view of Cintia Frencia, a provincial lawmaker for the leftwing Workers Party, there are vested economic interests standing in the way of waste treatment and recycling.

“It is no coincidence that waste is dumped in the poorest towns around Córdoba,” she told IPS.

“Now there is talk of a new garbage burial site with a 30-year lifetime, which means that for the next three decades there are no plans to develop any technology for reducing and treating rubbish, in other words it’s just a business,” she said.

CORMECOR wants to raise capital by being listed on the national stock market.

Garbage is big business all over the world. In countries like Italy, it is profitable not only to companies but to the mafias that control them.

IPS obtained no replies to its requests for information from CORMECOR and the environmental secretariats of the provincial and city government.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

“Area of sacrifice” – a sign put up by local residents in Bouwer, Argentina to protest the garbage and toxic waste dumped in their town. Credit: Courtesy of Bouwer Sin Basura

By Fabiana Frayssinet
BOUWER, Argentina , Dec 16 2013 (IPS)

Towns traditionally celebrate their most characteristic aspect. So the town of Bouwer in central Argentina decided to “celebrate” garbage.

But the “first provincial festival of pollution and against discrimination” is not a reason for pride, but a mechanism of resistance by a town that wants to stop being “an area of environmental sacrifice” in the central province of Córdoba.

In the festival, to be held Feb. 22 in this working-class town of 2,000 inhabitants located 17 km south of the provincial capital, Córdoba, “there will be ‘asado con cuero’ [beef barbecued in its hide over an open fire, a traditional meal] and different artists,” the signs say.

For 28 years, Bouwer was known as the site of a garbage dump that accumulated, in nine different landfills without protective membranes – 12 million tons of waste from the capital and surrounding municipalities.

After years of struggle by local residents, the dump was closed in 2010. But no clean-up was carried out to reduce the environmental and health impacts, as the townspeople and local government of Bouwer are demanding.

“Besides affecting our quality of life, the dump is still polluting the water and the soil, from surface runoff, and the atmosphere, from the gases that are emitted,” the municipal environmental adviser, Adolfo González, tells Tierramérica.

But the festival won’t only feature the dump, Nayla Azzinnari, the press secretary for the Bouwer Sin Basura (Garbage-Free Bouwer) movement, comments to Tierramérica.

These include a vehicle pound, a hazardous waste incinerator (which is now closed), a lead smelter whose open smokestack created health problems for local residents between 1984 and 2005, a shipment of 12 tons of DDT and other dangerous pesticides that arrived in 2005 but were removed due to the protests by the locals, and a pit containing toxic industrial waste.

And as if this weren’t enough, fields of genetically modified soy surrounding the town are constantly sprayed with toxic agrochemicals, like in the rest of the rural areas in Córdoba province.

“It’s a cocktail of pollutants…we can’t accept any new sources,” says González.

But there are new reasons for the festival. The Córdoba city and provincial governments plan to open a new dump 600 metres from the first, which will receive some 2,500 tons of waste a day from the city and adjacent municipalities.

“It sounds like a joke: closing down one dump and opening another in the same place,” Mónica Rescala, another member of Bouwer Sin Basura, tells Tierramérica.

In the Cornelio Saavedra rural school, which stands next to the old dump and around 1,000 metres from the site of the new one, schoolchildren, teachers and mothers like Rescala are watching a video explaining the risks posed by the landfill.

“We were shocked by the stench and the number of pests in the school: flies, mosquitoes, huge rats. We couldn’t work in such an unhealthy environment,” the school principal, María Teresa Destéfanis, tells Tierramérica.

The cruel irony is that the school has no garbage collection service.

Part of the Bouwer dump. Credit: Courtesy of Bouwer Sin Basura

In October, Bouwer Mayor Juan Lupi declared a public health emergency.

From 2000 to 2012, infant mortality in Bouwer stood at 22 deaths per 1,000 live births.

That rate, obtained from the records of births and deaths in the civil registry, is nearly two times the provincial average of 11 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2010.

The perinatal mortality rate (stillbirths or newborns who die in their first week of life) stood at 25 for every 1,000 – two and a half times the provincial rate.

But no epidemiological studies have been carried out here, despite the fact that the numbers of cases of respiratory and skin ailments, cancer, miscarriages and premature births in Bouwer are also alarming.

“We started to see malformations in animals, which became particularly noticeable around 2008: dogs with cleft lip and cleft palate, pigs that are born without hair and with their stomachs and testicles full of water, cats without claws, chickens without feet,” Rescala says.

The Foundation for the Defence of the Environment (FUNAM) warns that living next to a sanitary landfill “is dangerous because the gases can cause cancer of the bladder, stomach, liver, prostate, lungs, cervix and uterus, leukaemia, changes in embryonic and foetal development, low birth weight and even birth defects.”

“Dumps mainly emit methane and carbon dioxide, but also nonmethane organic compounds, which include toxic, carcinogenic gases,” FUNAM says.

“In these polluted landfills, which have no membrane, the volatile substances in the waste, many of which are toxic and carcinogenic, can be carried by the wind long distances. And the stench is nauseating,” the organisation adds.

According to González, approval is about to be obtained for landfarming – a bioremediation treatment process used in the management and disposal of petroleum refinery waste products. The site would be installed two and a half km from Bouwer.

González sums up: “Our town has been chosen as a place of environmental sacrifice.”

The schoolchildren make drawings about the video they watched. “I don’t want there to be garbage here,” says 10-year-old Alan Serrano.

“Living in the enormous dump, there’s nowhere to play football,” he complains. “I want to run around free on the streets, but I have to stay home, and always with mosquito screens so the flies and the dengue mosquitoes don’t come in.”

The report that described the outskirts of Bouwer as “optimum” for the installation of a new dump was carried out by the National University of Córdoba, at the request of the city government of the provincial capital.

But the university’s secretary of science and technology, Joaquín Navarro, clarifies to Tierramérica that it was “just the first part of the study.”

The second part, on specific socioenvironmental aspects of the focal areas [which has involved work on the ground by teams] is in the final stages…the draft document is being corrected after being revised by the municipal government,” he says.

But in the first part of the report, it becomes clear that Bouwer is a highly vulnerable part of the province.

The unemployment and illiteracy rates are among the highest in the province, 63.3 percent of the population has no health coverage – the highest proportion among the areas studied – and nearly 24 percent of local residents have unmet basic needs.

While academics and government technicians analyse the report, and quietly argue that “the garbage has to be dumped somewhere,” the local residents of Bouwer know that there are other solutions.

“Everyone should become aware and start to recycle,” says Rescala, who recycles nearly 100 percent of her trash, even though she is surrounded by dumps.

“We know that no place can be sacrificed. This time it’s Bouwer, but it could be any town next,” she says.

This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network.

A child at a lead-contaminated site. Credit: Blacksmith Institute

By Stephen Leahy
UXBRIDGE, Canada, May 9 2013 (IPS)

Toxic waste sites in 31 countries are damaging the brains of nearly 800,000 children and impairing the health of millions of people in the developing world, two new studies have found.

Toxins and pollutants in the environment are major sources of illness and reduced lifespans globally. The impacts on health in some countries are on par with malaria, said Kevin Chatham-Stephens, a pediatric environmental health fellow at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai."We have found lots of nasty sites out there but we don't have the money to clean them up." -- Bret Ericson of the Blacksmith Institute

“We were surprised that health impacts of living near toxic sites were on par with other well-known threats to public health such as malaria,” Chatham-Stephens told IPS.

In one study researchers found elevated levels of lead, chromium and other chemicals in soil and water samples near 373 toxic waste sites located in India, the Philippines and Indonesia. Nearly nine million people live near these sites and researchers calculated that the likely impact from diseases caused by exposure to these chemicals amounted to 828,722 lost years due to ill-health, disability or early death.

Malaria in the same countries caused 725,000 lost years of full health.

The “lost year” metric is known as disability-adjusted life years (DALY), a measure of overall disease burden used by the World Health Organisation. One DALY represents the loss of one year of equivalent full health.

“Lead and hexavalent chromium proved to be the most toxic chemicals and caused the majority of disease, disability and mortality among the individuals living near the sites,” said Chatham-Stephens, co-author of the study published this week in Environmental Health Perspectives.

The study was done in partnership with the Blacksmith Institute, a small international NGO based in New York City investigating the health risks of toxic sites in low and middle income countries. Blacksmith publishes the annual “World’s Worst Pollution Problems Report” to raise awareness and funding to help clean-up the worst sites.

Toxic sites “fly under the radar” in terms of public health awareness and action. Little research has been done on the health impacts of chemical pollutants in developing countries.

“This is the first estimate of the burden of disease resulting from living near toxic waste sites,” said Chatham-Stephens.

Previous studies have shown that lead can cause neurological, gastrointestinal and cardiovascular damage. Exposure to high levels of chromium has been shown to increase chances of developing lung cancer.

“This study highlights a major and previously under-recognised global health problem in lower and middle income countries,” said Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, dean for Global Health at the Icahn School of Medicine and a co-author.

“The next step is targeting interventions such as cleaning up the sites and minimising the exposure of humans in each of these countries where toxic chemicals are greatly present,” said Landrigan.

In a second study, researchers measured lead levels in soil and drinking water at 200 toxic waste sites in 31 countries, then estimated the blood lead levels in 779,989 children who were potentially exposed to lead from those sites. They found that their blood lead levels were likely very high, 15 to 20 times higher on average than children in the U.S.

“Lead has serious, long-term health consequences such as the potential to impair cognitive development in children and cause mental retardation,” said Chatham-Stephens.

Based on these findings, Chatham-Stephens estimates a loss of five to eight IQ points per child and an incidence of mild mental retardation in six out of every 1,000 children.

Increased cardiovascular disease is another impact from lead exposure but wasn’t part of the study. “We couldn’t account for every health impact,” he said. “We hope these studies raise awareness and result in on-site disease surveillance, including measurements of blood lead levels in children.”

Given the very high levels of toxins at some sites, targeted clean-up is also an urgent issue, he said.

“(Toxic sites) are a major public health problem that is hiding in plain sight,” Bret Ericson of the Blacksmith Institute previously told IPS.

“We have found lots of nasty sites out there but we don’t have the money to clean them up,” Ericson said.

Nouma Camara stands near the Akouedo open-air dumpsite in Abidjan. Camara says the effects of a 2006 toxic waste dumping here still prevent him from working full-time. Credit: Robbie Corey-Boulet/IPS

By Robbie Corey-Boulet
ABIDJAN, Sep 26 2012 (IPS)

Nouma Camara, a 40-year-old tailor, remembers waking up on Aug. 20, 2006 to a smell he described as “something catastrophic.” His home in Akouedo village, in Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital city of Abidjan, lies adjacent to a large, open-air dumpsite where toxic waste had been dumped the night before.

Almost immediately, the symptoms began to set in: nausea, headaches, eye irritation, blisters forming on his exposed skin. His wife, who was eight months pregnant at the time, fled to a village in the country’s north, concerned for their child’s safety. Camara eventually left for a short time as well.

“We couldn’t stay here because we didn’t want to smell this bad smell,” he told IPS, referring to what other victims have said was like a mix of garlic, gas and rotten eggs.

Six years later, blisters still form regularly on his hands, keeping him away from the clothes in his shop for days at a time. Although large sums have been allocated for compensation as part of settlements related to the toxic waste dumping at 18 different sites in the commercial capital of this West African nation, Camara is one of many victims who have never received so much as a dollar.

Ivorian authorities have said that the dumping of toxic waste created by Trafigura, the multinational Europe-based organisation, resulted in at least 15 deaths and spurred more than 100,000 residents of Abidjan to seek medical treatment.

On Tuesday Sep. 25, Amnesty International and Greenpeace International released the results of a three-year joint investigation that attempts to tell the whole story of the scandal.

The report recommended that the United Kingdom pursue criminal investigations against Trafigura and urged Côte d’Ivoire to review a 2007 settlement for 200 million dollars with the company that granted it immunity from prosecution here.

Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty International’s Africa director, told IPS that she believed the report provided “as solid a picture as we think is possible apart from an epidemiological study” on just how victims were affected. It also details the ways in which compensation schemes have fallen short.

Long journey to Abidjan

The report described the waste’s convoluted path from the United Arab Emirates to Abidjan via Europe, and accuses Trafigura of exploiting weak international law enforcement in trying to dispose of it. But Gaughran said this was no excuse for any crimes that were committed to go unpunished.

“What happened here is that international laws weren’t properly enforced because we were dealing with an actor that was moving from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and from country to country,” Gaughran said. “What we’re working towards is full accountability so that victims get the compensation they’re entitled to.”

According to the report, Trafigura subjected large amounts of an unrefined gasoline called coker naphtha to a waste-generating process known as “caustic washing”. It then attempted to offload the waste in various locations in Europe and then in Nigeria before a subsidiary partnered with a newly-licensed company to offload it in Abidjan.

Waste was dumped in at least 18 different sites throughout the city, including near homes and schools.

Amnesty International and Greenpeace International said that while Trafigura did not dump the waste itself, it played a role that “has never been subject to a full court proceeding.”

In a response sent to Amnesty International and later posted on the multinational’s website, Trafigura said that the report contained “significant inaccuracies and misrepresentations.”

It also said the report “oversimplifies difficult legal issues, analyses them based on ill-founded assumptions and draws selective conclusions which do not adequately reflect the complexity of the situation of the legal processes.

“Courts in five jurisdictions have reviewed different aspects of the incident, and decisions and settlements have been made. It is simply wrong to suggest that the issues have not had the right judicial scrutiny,” Trafigura said.

The company also disputed the Ivorian government’s casualty totals, contending that the waste could only have caused “low level flulike symptoms and anxiety.”

Compensation woes

Trafigura did agree that the implementation of compensation schemes has at times been “regrettable.” In 2007, Trafigura and Côte d’Ivoire reached a settlement in which the company would pay about 200 million dollars for compensation and clean-up while receiving immunity from prosecution.

But Gaughran said a government distribution scheme had to be closed down over “allegations of irregularities,” and it was unclear weather all the victims identified by the government had received payments.

In 2009, Trafigura agreed to pay 45 million dollars to settle a complaint brought by 30,000 victims in the U.K., but distribution was again corrupted – this time in a scandal that led to the May resignation of the Ivorian Minister for African Integration Adama Bictogo. Some 6,000 victims in the case did not receive the money that was owed to them, according to the report.

Helene Djeke, a 59-year-old resident of Akouedo village, said compensation would go a long way toward helping her take care of her 32-year-old daughter, who she said suffered heart problems and poor eyesight following exposure to the waste and has been unable to work ever since.

Even more helpful, she said, would be a full accounting of what exactly victims were exposed to – information that Guaghran said had not been disclosed.

“I’m not happy with the fact that the people who did this are still not punished,” Djeke said.

Yacouba Doumbia, president of the Ivorian Movement for Human Rights, said the organisation supported the calls to pursue criminal investigations into the dumping.

“We will work so that we can know the extent of the damages and the identities of those responsible, so that victims obtain fair reparation for the damages they have suffered,” he said.

Referring to the 2007 agreement that gave Trafigura immunity, Doumbia said: “We believe the state has failed Ivorians. The consequences of the spill of the waste were overlooked because of crass monetary considerations. Moreover, many victims who have been identified have so far received none of the money given to the state.”