jan 4th
about the french aircraft carrier laden with asbestos.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: S
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1005215
Say no to France
Monday, January 02, 2006 20:26 IST
The French aircraft carrier Clemenceau, now being retired and sold as scrap, is on the high seas somewhere in the Indian Ocean carrying anything between 40 and 100 tonnes of toxic substances. Ominously, it is headed for these shores.
The ship will be broken and turned to scrap at the Alang ship breaking facility in Gujarat, whose 40,000-odd workforce breaks almost half the world's ships in abysmal safety conditions. Of particular concern is that this ship has huge amounts of asbestos that could cause serious diseases, including lung cancer, to those who work on cutting the ship and converting it into scrap. Asbestos is not the only worry on this floating toxic dump. It carries other toxins and dangerous concentrations of heavy metals like cadmium.
France has a particularly bad record of exporting pollution. When it developed its nuclear arsenal, the country carried out hundreds of thermonuclear explosions not on French soil but in colonial territories that it occupies in the South Pacific. Like many other developed economies, it routinely dispatches its own toxic junk to poor countries, some of them to Francophone nations in Africa and elsewhere. The revenue accrued comes in very handy for these poor countries, but also spoils their environment.
The steel obtained from the ship is likely to be worth a partly $8 million, much of which will accrue to two private contractors. The official stand—that the shipyard has enough facilities to take care of dangerous toxins—is not borne out by reality. Respectable environment groups, like Kalpvriksh from India and Greenpeace, have repeatedly pointed to the contrary. The Clemenceau is also violating the Basel convention, which specifically forbids the export of asbestos from one country to another. France is a signatory to this accord and needs to be held responsible under its international treaty obligations.
As India takes its place as a dynamic outsourcing destination it can afford to let go of toxins as a money-making opportunity. Ship-breaking is a hazardous task at the best of times and the asbestos adds to the danger. If the ministry of environment cannot guarantee the safety of workers and the environment, it should ensure that the ship does not come to Indian shores. A putative global power cannot also become a dustbin for the world's toxic wastes.
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