A highly toxic cocktail of petrochemical waste and caustic soda, ended up in a suburb north of Abidjan Africa last month. This toxic black sludge came from a Greek-owned tanker flying a Panamanian flag and leased by the London branch of a Swiss trading corporation whose fiscal headquarters are in the Netherlands. Proper and safe disposal in Europe would have cost in the hundreds of thousands. Due to decisions made in North America and Europe, it was dumped on the doorstep of some of the world’s poorest people. To date eight people have died from inhaling pernicious fumes from the dumped waste and thousands more have been treated in hospitals crippling the already fragile health care system.
Michael Williams, a spokesman for the UN Environment Program, says that illegal dumping goes on all the time in African countries with very little attention.
For more on this story go to BBC News
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