Toxic trade with Africa By Arti K. Vir A new kind of trade has been taking place between some western industrialized nations and certain African countries. Toxic and radioactive waste shipped out from the West are being dumped on African soil. Often this is a silent trade. In some cases, however, contractual agreements have been made with African governments. As environmental and safety laws in Europe and the United States become increasingly stringent and as the cost of disposal of hazardous waste has mounted up to $2500 per ton, dumpers, or “waste merchants” as they have come to be known, are turning to poor and easily accessible African territories. This year, several countries in West Africa received offers from the United States and Europe. One of these countries will get only $2.50 per ton. But to nations that are drowning economically, this is an attractive deal. Many African nations have been outraged by this new assault. Nigeria has been at the forefront in denouncing waste dumping in Africa, and is particularly concerned because Benin, its neighbor to the west, has agreed to accept radioactive wastes from France. At the Organization of African Unity (OAU) summit held in May this year in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, President Babangida of Nigeria declared, “No government, no matter the financial inducement, has the right to mortgage the destiny of future generations of African children.” Ironically, about a week after the OAU summit, toxic waste of foreign origin was discovered in Nigeria. The discovery was made on lune 2, after a letter was received by the Nigerian government from eight Nigerian students in Pisa, Italy. The students, alerted by reports in local Italian newspapers, wrote to their government warning that waste from Italy was being dumped in Nigeria. According to reports, the waste drums, weighing about 3800 tons, were found stored at a site in Koko, Nigeria, a port town of about 5000 inhabitants. The cargo had arrived from Italy in five
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shipments between August 1987 and May 1988. When the owner of the waste site, Mr. Sunday Nana, was questioned, he said he had no knowledge of the contents of the drums and that over the last five years he had been renting out portions of his land to various importers for storing their merchandise. In this case he identified the importer of the drums as Mr. Gianfranco Raffaelli, an Italian businessman. Raffaelli, a Nigerian resident for many years, imported the wastes in collaboration with Iruekpen Construction Company, a Nigerian firm with which he was closely connected. He falsified and forged documents and permits for importing the drums. Raffaelli slipped out of Nigeria on June 2 after newspapers reported the discovery of the Koko dump. The government arrested 15 Nigerians in connection with the scandal; an Italian accomplice, Desiderio Perazzi, is being held in jail. A special tribunal will be set up to try this case. On the morning of lune 14, Nigerian newspaper headlines read “Culprits may face tiring squad’’ and “Death penalty likely.” The government also seized an Italian merchant ship, the M. V. Piave, on lune IO in order to transport the wastes back to Italy. The Nigerian ambassador to Rome was recalled. The Minister of Justice and the Attorney General have said the matter will go to the International Court of Justice at The Hague if Italy does not remove the toxic wastes. The dump site was sealed off and a team of experts studied the area and took samples for analysis. Experts
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from other countries, including Britain and the United States,. were asked to assist in the investigation. Initial surveys of the site showed that many of the drums were damaged, leaking, and emitting an odor. Recent reports say about 4ooo of the drums were old and rusted and some were swelling because of the heat. Scientists have determined that many of the drums contain volatile solvents and there is a risk of fire or explosion that would produce highly toxic smoke. Some drums are marked with the letters “R,” “D,” “X,”and the skull and crossbones symbol. Chemical name markings include “Polychlorodifenile” (PCBs), “fluorosilicate,” “erocitus,” and “rheoe 53.” It has been reported that among the waste at the Koko site, methyl melamine waste originated from DynoCyanamid of Norway, dimethyl and ethylacetate formaldehyde came from Italian chemical manufacturers, and PCBs came from Elma, a ’bin-based electromechanical plant. The experts’ reports have conflicted to some degree, but the presence of highly toxic PCBs has been confirmed. Also, the Japanese Atomic Energy Research Agency reported that three of the drums contain a highly radioactive material. On July 6, 150 workers started repackaging the waste into containers for removal. On July 12, three workers suffered severe chemical burns while moving the drums. Doctors at the site reported that some of the crew were vomiting blood and had been hospitalized, and one man had been partially paralyzed. On July 30 the M.V. Karin B sailed to Italy carrying the first 2270ton load of toxic waste from the Koko dump site. The second shipment of waste, which carried all the remaining containers out, left Koko on August 15th aboard the M.V.Deep Sea Carrier. However, because land within a radius of about 500 m from the dump site has been declared unsafe, wncern over surface and groundwater contamination remains. Scientists will be doing continuous environmental monitoring at and around the site for the next three years. Also, the local hospital is being Envimn. Sci. Technol.. Vol. 23. NO. 1, 1989 23
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I upgraded so it can monitor health effects on the Koko residents. Nigeria has received international attention because of the sandal at Koko, but this is only one of many occurrences in Africa. In early June, as Nigerian papers carried headlines almost daily on the waste dumping from Italy, many other reports of this kind of activity surfaced, and by mid-June, some of the weekly African journals, including West Afn’ca and African Concord, were carrying cover stories and special reports on this toxic terrorism. The involvement of several countries in this new trade was revealed. Another case of dumping occurred in Guinea. In March of this year, a Norwegian shipping company dumped 15,000 tons of material labeled “raw material for bricks” in a quarry on Kassa Island, off the mainland capital of Conakry, Guinea. On June 8, newspapers reported that the island’s vegetation was drying up and dying. The cause, the Guinean government discovered, was the dumped cargo that was in fact incinerator ash from a municipal incinerator in Philadelphia. The Guinean government called for immediate removal of the waste and on June 10 arrested Norway’s Honorary Consul, MI. Sigmund Stromme. He was also a director in the NorwegianGuinean company Guinomar that imported the waste. The shipment was the 6rst of a total of 85,000 tons of waste 24 Envimn. sci. Technol., Vol. 23,No. 1. 1989
Guinea was to receive. Stromme was charged with forging documents in order to bring in the shipment. On June 21 a Norwegian freighter anived in Guinea to take away the 15,000 tons of incinerator ash, and by July 2 it was reported to have removed all the waste. According to Greenpeace, there is a long list of countries involved in this toxic waste trade. Allegedly there was a contract with a Dutch shipping company under which Congo was to receive solvent, paint, pesticide sludge, and chemical waste from the United States and Europe amounting to a million tons between June 1988 and May 1989 for a fee of $84 million. In May Congo retracted this agreement. On February 9 of this year, Guinea Bissau signed a five-year conuact with two British companies to receive as landfill 15 million tons of waste from tanning and pharmaceutical industries for a payment of $600 million. The wastes would come from the United States and Europe. This contract has now been canceled. South Africa received two shipments in 1986 of 60 drums each of mercurylaced sludge waste from New Jersey that was to have been recycled to reclaim the mercury. At least 1500 gallons of hazardous waste from armed forces agencies in the United States were dumped in a phosphate mine pit in Zimbabwe. The exporters from the United States, Jack
and Charles Colbert, were sentenced in February 1988 to 13 years’ imprisonment for fraudulent business practices. Of the shipment, 214 drums were falsely labeled as cleaning fluids. Afn’ca Analysis reported that a U.K. company has a IO-year license to dump 10 million drums of waste from Europe on Annobon Island in Equatorial Guinea for a fee of $1.6 million (I). West African Hotline reported that President Bongo of Gabon met with Denison Mining Corporation in 1987 and agreed to take uranium tailing waste from its mines in Colorado (I). Sierra Leone newspapers reported that Freetown received a shipment of toxic ash, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and lead from a U S . ship, the Bark, in March. The cargo was transferred to the U.S.-affiliated Sierra Rutile mine. In January 1988, a contract was made between Benin and Sesco Ltd. in Gibraltar to deliver up to five million tons per year of nonnuclear industrial waste from North America and Europe and will pay Benin $2.50 per ton. Another agreement was made in January between France and President Kerekou of Benin by which France will pay Benin $18 million for hazardous wastes. Three cargo vessels are on their way from France to Benin carrying the first consignment of waste, including cyanide, asbestos, and high-level radie active material.
On August 3, newspapers reported that two towns in Benin had received large amounts of radioactive waste from the Soviet Union between 1984 and 1986. Some was buried at Canna, under the tarmac of a military airfield that was being built by the Soviets. The work at the airfield ceased two years ago when the Soviets moved out of Benin. Another dumping ground for fines up to $1.6 million and prison senthe Soviet radioactive waste was at tences up to 20 years. Gambia has Dan. Both dumping areas are in the his- passed a bill setting penalties of 5 to 40 toric Abomey region. A shipment of years of imprisonment. Nigeria and nuclear waste was brought into Benin Congo are now putting together antiby a Benin marine vessel from Le dumping laws as well. In addition, AfHavre in northern France and has been rican countries have been urged to set up monitoring systems or a “dump buried also in the Abomey area. The list of countries continues: Sene- watch” to look out for potential dump gal, Ethiopia, and Niger have been ap- ers. proached with offers to trade in hazardMany countries around the world, now alerted, are refusing to off-load ous gooas. The widespread practice of toxic toxic cargo. It has been reported that a waste dumping in Africa has been ship carrying 10,OOO tons of waste strongly condemned and was addressed from Philadelphia has been sailing at the Economic Community of West around since August 1986 because its African States (ECOWAS) meeting cargo has been rejected by the Bahaheld in lune at Lome, Togo. The 16 mas, Honduras, Haiti, the Dominican member countries passed a resolution Republic, and Guinea Bissau. The Italcalling for stiff penalties for the toxic ian Green Party has reported that a Syrwaste dumpers. Some of the countries ian-registered ship, h b i a , sailed have already started instituting laws around the world for more tban a year prohibiting dumping. Ivory Coast looking for a place to discharge its load adopted a law in July that provides for of chemical wastes, and e v e n m y had
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to return without success to Marina de Cmara, Italy, where it had started. Public outcry, antidumping laws, and monitoring systems should act as deterrents for toxic waste dumpers. The retractions of dumping contracts by Congo and Guinea Bissau and the demands by Nigeria and Guinea that foreign governments remove illegally dumped hazardous materials from their temtories are warnings to industrial Mtions to keep waste away from African shores.
References (1)Ayadike. 0.We81 Africo, June 20, 1988, p. 1109.
Arti K. Vir received a B. S. in biology in 1981 from hfayette College in Pennsylvania and an M. S. in environmental science in 1983from Hunter College of the City Universityof New York. Vir has worked for the environmental consulring firm of Wapora, Inc. and Edwards and Kelsey, Inc. and as an environmental scientist for the New York State Attorney General’s oflce. Vir lives in West Africa; she has traveled in the Ivory Coast, Ghana,Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. She phns to be in Africa for the nexi few years and will continue to travel and write.
Acid deposition: A paper tiger By Stanton S. Miller This nation is controUmg acid rain with paper. At the outset the Reagan administration opted not to control acid deposition, because the science was not all in. Then in 1980, Congress established a 10-year program to get the facts; by enacting the Energy Security Act of 1980, Public Law 96-294, Congress initiated the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program (NMM). This year, 27 state-of-the-art science and technology reports will become available that will analyze the causes, effects, controls, and costs of acidic deposition. Produced at a cost of about $400 million of federal tax revenues and mepared and authored by about 100 &.&ialists, these reports will become available in November 1989. But the results in these reports will be more than decision-makers can handle. Perhaps the decision-makers will not be
able to see the policy implications for the facts. Nevertheless, an Integrated Assessment Report, the final assessment report from the NAPM, will be available in September 1990. Meanwhile, at a public review meeting in mid-November this year in Washington, DC, NAPAP received comments on its draft assessment plan. The final plan will be published this month. But the uncertainty level in the forthcoming science and technology r e ports is a main concern. A classification system has been adopted to evaluate and rank the scientific information. Codes from zero to four stars will be used to assess the information in the 27 reports; these codes are intended to help the public and the policy-makers undersmd the assessmenk. A-four-star rdting indicates the highest level of confidence in the accuracy of that section of the report; a zero rating indicates the lowest level of confidence in the facts.
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It will not be an easy task for peerreview scientists to evaluate this information and to choose ratings for it. James R. Mahoney, director of the program and moderator at the public meeting, says, “This rating will not replace formalized error and careful interpretive statements, but it will enhance communication between science and the public.” When these reports be come available in November, confidence levels will be included. For those who can wait, a 5-day international conference is planned for November 1989 to review the 27 reports. Meanwhile, what priority President-elect Bush places on this key environmental problem will be interesting to watch.
Sranron S. Miller is fhe managing edifor ofES&T Env ion
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