Antinuclear

Global scandal of criminal gangs dumping radioactive trash

A tsunami in 2005 turned up hundreds of barrels along the shore, and the next year, the UN confirmed that the waste included “uranium radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, industrial, hospital, chemical, leather treatment and other toxic waste.”

The Mob Is Secretly Dumping Nuclear Waste Across Italy And Africa Gizmodo, KELSEY CAMPBELL-DOLLAGHAN 1 FEBRUARY 2014  Organised crime is famously good at exploiting time-sensitive industries like construction, fishing, and — of course — garbage removal. But revelations about millions of tons of toxic waste buried haphazardly and illegally by the mob are causing an uproar in southern Italy, where cancer rates are nearly 50 per cent higher than the average in certain areas…..

Campania is now known as “the Land of Fires,” for the garbage fires that regularly ignite. In his 2006 book about Naples’ organised crime, Gomorrah: A Personal Journey into the Violent International Empire of Naples’ Organised Crime System, Roberto Saviano describes the region as a place where “any space with an owner can become a dump site.”

In this world, the land is so unstable from dumping that concrete scaffolds must be built to hold up houses and buildings, and empty space is thought of us “a giant carpet” to sweep things — specifically, industrial chemicals and radioactive waste — under:

Desperate landowners sell off their fields, and the clans acquire new landfill sites at low — very low — costs. Meanwhile, people are constantly dying of tumors. A slow and silent massacre, difficult to monitor since those who want to live as long as possible flee to the hospitals in the north.

The lungs fester, the trachea starts to redden, a trip to the hospital for a CAT scan where the black spots betray the presence of a tumour. Ask the ill of Campania where they’re from and they’ll often reveal the entire path of toxic waste.

The rates of cancer in some parishes are 47 per cent higher than the national average — and that’s how the region acquired its second nickname, after “the Land of Fires”: The Triangle of Death. According to The New York Times’ new report on the dumping, some 10 million tons of toxic and nuclear waste have been buried here, from as far away as Germany.

The details of the illegal toxic dumping schemes are still emerging……

It gets worse. These companies often dumped all over the region — including the coastlines of Somalia. Reports of a guns-for-dumping scheme circulated. A tsunami in 2005 turned up hundreds of barrels along the shore, and the next year, the UN confirmed that the waste included “uranium radioactive waste, lead, cadmium, mercury, industrial, hospital, chemical, leather treatment and other toxic waste.”

But a 2010 Greenpeace published a report called The Toxic Ship alleged something far more widespread and systematic — a global toxic waste trade that pushed radioactive waste from developed countries to developing countries:

Waste containers were shipped away following a path of least resistance and weakest governance, ending up in remote areas of countries such as Equatorial Guinea, Lebanon, Somalia and the Congo. Toxic waste was dumped on Nigerian and Haitian beaches.

Along with similar reports from the UN and other watch groups, a picture of this invisible network is starting to emerge: A hidden, ad-hoc economic system that is ubiquitous yet rarely observed or reported.

You might feel very far away from this particular crisis, but it turns out that we all might be accessories. Last month, Interpol published a warning about millions of tons of toxic e-waste arriving in Africa and Asia from developed countries, too. “Much is falsely classified as ‘used goods’ although in reality it is non-functional,” said anInterpol spokesperson to The Guardian. “It is often diverted to the black market and disguised as used goods to avoid the costs associated with legitimate recycling.”

So not only has refuse from Europe’s nuclear power plant found a home off the coast of Africa or Italy — the minerals and metals from your last computer, your fridge, or your phone might have, too.http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2014/02/the-mob-is-secretly-dumping-nuclear-waste-across-italy-and-africa/

February 3, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized