Wastes

An ecological meddling is necessary in Hungary. The red mud from Ajka contains notably significant levels of sulphur (around 3,000 mg / kg), chromium (600 mg / kg), nickel (200 mg / kg), arsenic (100 mg / kg) and mercury (1 mg / kg). The spreading of red mud presents health risks for the population that cannot be considered as minor. To give an order of magnitude, if one considers that half of the substance was spilt on farmlands covering an area of 5,000 hectares, then each hectare would be covered by approximately 500 tons of waste.

Subject:: The Hungary Disaster

Characteristics: The processing of bauxite mineral with caustic soda to extract alumina produces red mud residual. Red mud contains caustic soda, iron, alumina, silicium, sodium, calcium, titanium, manganese, vanadium, hexavalent chromium, lead and cadmium. Because of the accumulation of all these metals and minerals red mud is a waste toxic for aquatic life, pets and farm animals.

Only in French.

The site Arzamas-16 is threatened by forest fires since the middle of July 2010. The exact location of the storage and waste on the site is unknown. The current management of plutonium storage, enriched uranium and nuclear warheads are the subject of diverging information. The military site is in activity since 1946. For more than half a century, experiments and nuclear activities have left undeniable traces on the site (see the assembly of photos). If the fire reaches strategic and radioactive sectors this could spark a major event but also cause global contamination. The Russian government and fire fighters lack of insight to foresee the risk caused by the fires around this dangerous site and to control them is shocking.

Only in French.

Forest fires and slash and burn farming are a major source of air pollution and greenhouse gases which in his book “Forests: The Shadow of Civilization”*, Professor Robert Harrison suggests to call the “fever effect”.

Russia is an expert in the matter. Satellite observations show that the extent of forest fires is always downplayed by the authorities. 2 million hectares were declared burnt in 2003 while 14 million were observed. During the summer of 2006, cinders and soot from fires around St Petersburg caused high concentrations of particles and air pollution in Finland, Scotland and Northern England. Forest fires are an important source of mercury scattering in the atmosphere.

Only in French.

While the Gulf Jash, ex-Probo Koala, is leaving the oily waters of the Gulf of Mexico and while the Aristos II, another tanker chartered by Trafigura, is being scrapped on the muddy beaches of Chittagong in Bangladesh, the judgement of the Amsterdam court course is showing a new light on the dark side of traders and marine traffic.

The misinformation by the multinational Trafigura is denied. According to their spokespeople, lawyers and their spin doctors everything which happened in Abidijan is “a myth”. Amsterdam’s judgement confirms that the waste from the Merox desulphurisation onboard the Probo Koala was toxic and dangerous. Four years after the Probo Koala’s stop in The Netherlands, this judgement puts an end to the alleged irresponsibility of Trafigura. In spite of the breaking up of responsibility in place in shipping, each link in the chain, on land and at sea, has been grasped by the justice.

Only in French.

At the witness stand in the Amsterdam courtroom, Trafigura steers the truth as ruthlessly as it steered the Probo Koala. Trafigura’s defence lawyer declared that all the damages caused by refining at sea of Petroleos Mexicanos’ hyper sulphurized naphtha and all the health risks from the desulphurization waste could be only a “myth” spread by ecologists, journalists, and politicians. In his opening defence he stated that “It has not been proven that the events in the Ivory Coast [the spreading of Probo Koala’s waste in Abidjan] cause serious harm to the health of the population, or that they could have done”.