Trafigura, the company whose disposal of wastage has shocked many across the world, are simply a named case amongst several very similar cases, argues environmentalist and resident Guardian green guru George Monbiot. In a piece on the discovery, Monbiot claims that the Trafigura case, terrible though it is, is a standard case for lots of African nations, and that similar processes are enacted regularly.

Monbiot's statement is made all the more alarming when takking into consideration the fact that the case was not only seriously damaging to the environment around it, but that the dumping of waste has had terrible effects on human beings. Still, worse, both the BBC and the Guardian claimed that emails sent by officials at the company knew of the danger of the chemicals involved in teh waste that they were exposing.

On the subject, Monbiot had the following to say:

"It was revolting, monstrous, inhumane – and scarcely different from what happens in Africa almost every day. The oil trading company Trafigura has just agreed to pay compensation to 31,000 people in Cote d’Ivoire, after the Guardian and the BBC’s Newsnight obtained emails sent by its traders. They reveal that Trafigura knew that the oil slops it sent there in 2006 were contaminated with toxic waste. But the Ivorian contractor it employed to pump out the hold of its tanker dumped them around inhabited areas in the capital city and the countryside. Tens of thousands of people fell ill and 15 died. It is one of the world’s worst cases of chemical exposure since the gas leak at the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal. But in all other respects the Trafigura case is unremarkable. It’s just another instance of the rich world’s global fly-tipping".

Further Monbiot argued that little had been done, despite knowledge of the problem , to curb Trafigura's actions. Rather than government intervention, he says, there were simply pirates:

The only people who have sought physically to stop this dumping are Somali pirates. Most of them take to the seas only for blood and booty; but some have formed coastal patrols to stop over-fishing and illegal dumping by foreign fleets(7,8,9). Some of the vessels being protected from pirates by Combined Task Force 151 – the rich world’s policing operation in the Gulf of Aden – have come to fish illegally or dump toxic waste. The warships make no attempt to stop them.

An interesting accoint of a topical issue, then, and one to be heeded.

Source: Monbiot.com

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