Sandesh Prabhudesai
4 May 2000
While the state government has announced an expert committee to probe into the pollution angle of the controversial Meta Strips project here, Greenpeace, an international group of environmentalists, has strongly come out against the setting up of the project anywhere in the World.
The Spanish collaborated 250 crore project has been presently closed by the state government, following violent protests over it from the villagers of coastal villages in South Goa near the port town of Vasco. The local Church is also actively involved in the year-long agitation.
"It is a clear case of toxic waste dumping by the West in the Asian countries. Let them learn to deal with their wastes in their own countries", states Nityanand Jayaraman, the Asia Toxic campaigner for Greenpeace in India.
After visiting the copper processing plant at Sancoale during their Goa visit, Jayaraman has said the company proposal to use both the PVC-coated copper or pre-stripped copper cables are hazardous to the environment as well as the workers.
The confusion over what would be exactly used as a raw material at the plant still prevails as A V Parekh, president of Meta Strips, dismisses the Greenpeace contention that they would import PVC-coated copper and send the mechanically stripped PVC to Mumbai for recycling.
"We will basically import the thick PVC pipes like telephone cables. After removing the copper wires from it, we will sell this PVC to the companies manufacturing plastic tanks and other appliances like buckets etc", claims Parekh.
Greenpeace has thus also urged the local government as well as the company to clarify discrepancies in the various reports on the issue of raw materials. "We still do not know what other hazardous material they would import", quips Jayaraman.
According to him, the Meta Strips proposes to import 16,980 tons of PVC-coated copper cable scrap annually. As the poison plastic cannot be recycled or disposed of, the company is only importing threats to environment and workers, he adds.
Poly Vinyl Chloride is being targeted world-wide by environmentalists as it contains highly toxic substances like lead, antimony, chlorinated paraffin and softeners such as phthalates. "The only alternative is to store it in containers till the solution is found", feels Jayaraman.
While Jayaraman has also objected to the importing of pre-stripped copper cables on the grounds that it contains up to 0.1 per cent of plastic, Parekh feels the Greenpeace is simply assuming the rare possibility. Even the written statement by Jayaraman says that "formation of super-toxins such as dioxins and furans cannot at all be ruled out".
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