French 'toxic' ship a wakeup call for India
by Sushil Pareek

    Mumbai: A leading Indian environmentalist has said that New Delhi must reign in profit-seeking business lobbies who turn a blind eye to ecological and health concerns in its ship breaking yards as controversy brews over allowing a French aircraft carrier, which they say is loaded with toxic waste, into the country. Environmental groups led by Greenpeace have urged Paris and New Delhi not to allow the decommissioned Clemenceau to reach a scrap yard in the western state of Gujarat next month without first being 98 percent decontaminated in France. Greenpeace says the 27,000-tonne ship is fitted with hundreds of tonnes of hazardous materials, including 500 tonnes of asbestos, which could pose a severe risk to scrap yard workers, most of who are working with least regard to health safety.

   Debi Goenka, executive trustee of Conservation Action Trust, a western Mumbai-based environment watchdog, said it is a wake up call for the government, which has been turning a blind eye to the plight of thousands of these impoverished workers. "Our labour laws and our environmental laws, the implementation is extremely week and if you see the kind of very primitive conditions in which ship breaking is carried out in India, it is not at all surprising that all these countries find it lucrative to dump their old ships over here. We seem to be able to buy junk from all over the world and bring it to India for dumping over here," Goenka said. Greenpeace said in a report published in December that thousands of workers involved in the ship-breaking industry in countries like India, Pakistan and China have probably died over the past two decades due to accidents or exposure to toxic waste. French authorities meanwhile have said the most dangerous work of removing 115 tonnes of brittle asbestos had been done in France and the leftover amount was there as the ship had to be kept seaworthy on its last journey to India.

   The French envoy to India said this week there were only 45 tonnes of non-brittle asbestos on board and it would be removed in India in the safest manner with French engineers overseeing. But Goenka, who detailed the real time effects of asbestos, was in no mood to buy any of the reasoning. "Once the Asbestos fibers are inhaled there is no way you can get it out of the system and each fiber once it is lodged within the lungs and your breathing system will create a tissue growth around almost like a cancer, which will physically impair the whole process of breathing. That means with every tiny fiber of asbestos that a person inhales, you are actually destroying the capacity to breath," he said. A panel appointed by India's Supreme Court had on Saturday recommended that the French aircraft carrier should not be allowed to enter the country but has agreed for a final hearing from the French authorities. "The committee will meet again after two weeks to take final view on this and make suitable recommendations," said D.B Boralkar, a senior member of the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee on Hazardous Wastes. The Clemenceau set sail from France in December for the massive Alang ship-breaking yard in Gujarat. The French Defence Ministry said the Clemenceau was still in the Mediterranean and would take two months to reach India. The Indian committee would review the matter in New Delhi on January 20 and see if there was more information on the amount and type of toxic matter in the Clemenceau by then. Greenpeace meanwhile said it would not lower its vigil against the ship, despite the panel's ruling.

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