Greenpeace targets India's HLL for mercury pollution
Date: 25-Sep-01
Country: INDIA
Local pollution authorities ordered HLL to stop production at its clinical thermometer plant in the southern Indian hill resort of Kodaikanal last March, citing inadequate safeguards in the disposal of hazardous mercury waste.
"We are demanding that the government and the company evolve a method to study the long-term health implications for the 600 present and former workers who were exposed to the mercury at the plant and also agree to pay for the healthcare costs," S.A. Mahendra Babu, one of the former employees at the plant, said.
HLL, which acquired control of the mercury thermometer unit following its acquisition of Ponds India Ltd in 1987, said it had stopped making thermometers after it was ordered to do so, but denied the plant had caused any harm to the environment or to the health of the workers.
"Comprehensive medical testing in accordance with established protocols have confirmed that none of its employees, former employees has suffered any adverse health effects resulting from mercury exposure," the company said in a statement to Reuters.
"A study by international environmental consultants...has found no adverse environmental impact from the plant," a HLL spokesman added.
However, Greenpeace spokesman Navroz Mody said an independent health study carried out on 30 workers from the plant had found that several of them were suffering from skin and dental ailments associated with mercury poisoning.
Babu said scores of workers including himself had left jobs at the plant in recent years after complaining of skin allergies, infertility and gynaecological and kidney complications.
HLL is a subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch conglomerate Unilver plc .