A global village or sewer?

If you had any misconceptions that we were protecting the environment and were being good stewards to our earth, this article from Scotland’s Sunday Herald should set you straight. I’ve quoted parts, but you should read the whole thing for the full outrage. Hat tip to FP Passport

The tsunami, however, also uncovered a hidden and altogether more serious problem for Somalis: along more than 400 miles of shoreline, the turbo-charged wave churned up reinforced containers of hazardous toxic waste that European companies had been dumping a short distance offshore for more than a decade, taking advantage of the fact that there was not even a pretend authority in the African “failed state”.

The force of the tsunami broke open some of the containers which held radioactive nuclear waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, flame retardants, hospital waste and cocktails of other deadly residues of Europe’s industrial processes.

As the contaminants spread across the land and in the air, the United Nations said that an unknown number of people died from breathing in toxic dust and fumes. Subsequent cancer clusters have also been linked to Europe’s special gift to the country, delivered by that tsunami.

Rumours had long circulated about European companies, mainly from Italy and Switzerland, taking advantage of the chaos in Somalia to strike immoral deals with local warlords to dump toxic waste. The arrangements, involving countless millions of pounds, inevitably financed the Somali war , offering a powerful incentive to ignore environmental concerns and carry on dumping the waste.

. . .

. . . in recent weeks the voyage of the rust-streaked Probo Koala, a Korean-built, Greek-owned, Panama-flagged, Dutch-chartered 50,000-tonne tanker, has thrown yet more light on a trade that goaded one of Africa’s most distinguished ecologists, Senegal’s Haidar al-Ali, to observe: “We talk of globalisation, of the global village, but here in Africa we are under the impression of being that village’s septic tank.”

. . .

The scandal of the Probo Koala came to light last month, some two weeks after the tanker unloaded its cargo of black sludge in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s capital , after being turned away from Amsterdam and several African ports. The poisonous sludge, spread on waste ground and in the sea and fresh water lagoons that festoon Abidjan, led to the deaths of at least eight people, including four children, while more than 80,000 others sought medical treatment for nosebleeds, diarrhoea, nausea, eye irritation and breathing difficulties.