Union Carbide Waste Leaves Bhopal Amid Tight Security
The waste had languished at the defunct factory premises for over four decades
Bhopal
Nearly 337 metric tonnes of highly toxic waste from the Union Carbide factory left for Pithampur amid tight security late on Wednesday evening. The shifting was necessitated by a High Court order.
The waste included semi-processed pesticides, Sevin and naphthalene residues, reactor leftovers, and mud from around the storage site where these highly dangerous substances had remained locked since the infamous 1984 gas leak.
The waste was packed in special bags and loaded onto a dozen trucks, which covered the nearly 250-kilometre distance to Pithampur on a specially created corridor that remained closed for everyday traffic.
District administrations along the convoy route closed roads for nearly 20 minutes to allow the safe and speedy transport of the waste, which will be incinerated at a facility in Pithampur over the next five months.
Activists say that the incineration of the highly toxic waste will contaminate the soil and groundwater in Pithampur, where the government had conducted a trial incineration of nearly 10 metric tonnes of this waste in 2015.
The shifting of the waste follows a High Court order, which had set a 6 January deadline for the government to act. The state government is scheduled to place a report on the shifting before the court on 3 January.
Reacting to the shifting, activist Rachna Dhingra said, “Union Carbide waste travels to the Pithampur facility, where it will create slow-motion Bhopal. No amount of protection in transporting this waste will save the damage that will be caused to the health and environment of the people of Pithampur and Indore when it is burnt and buried there.”
While the media remained banned from the factory premises during the packing and transport process, sources say that strict safety precautions were undertaken by officials supervising the exercise, which began nearly four days ago.
Meanwhile, a group of organisations in Pithampur is protesting the decision to incinerate the waste in their city. They say the waste should be shipped to the United States of America, the home base of the Union Carbide Corporation. They have called for a shutdown of the city on 3 January to protest the government’s decision.
Medical practitioners in neighbouring Indore have moved the High Court to challenge the incineration of the waste without sufficient trials and research.
