the toxic truth - Greenpeace

the toxic truth
The truck drivers were told to take the waste to
Akouédo dumpsite and deposit it there. Pisa-
Impex, the private company that operated the site,
had been alerted to the arrival of the waste. 168
The first truck arrived at Akouédo at
approximately 7pm on the Saturday evening,
and the waste was weighed prior to being
dumped. 169 After the first truck had offloaded
its waste, the site was closed. This was
several hours earlier than the official closing
time. 170 The workers apparently closed the site
early because of the smell emanating from the
waste. 171 One employee stayed on site and
several more trucks unloaded waste during the
night. 172 However, by this time the smell from
the waste was creating serious concern, and
no more trucks were allowed into the site. 173
Finding Akouédo closed, and unable to contact
Tommy, some of the drivers panicked and
simply dumped the contents of their vehicles
at random locations around Abidjan, close to
houses, workplaces, schools, fields of crops
and the city prison. 174
One driver later described his role to
Greenpeace:
“ Personally, I transported and discharged
four loads… I discharged the first two loads
in Akouédo. I discharged the third load in
Djibi, approximately 400m from the abattoir. I
discharged the fourth load near Vridi (Guichet
Unique). ”
“ During transportation, I noticed that there
Akouédo dump site, February 2009. © Amnesty InternAtIonAl
was something wrong with the product. It stunk
horribly. My eyes were watering and, on top of
that, I had seen the burns of the boy who had
taken a sample of the product. It was the first
time that something like this had happened
to me. Even when I opened the safety hatches
of my truck, the product ate into my fingers.
My assistant had burns on his hands that he
suffered when opening and closing the safety
hatches of the tank during the loading and
unloading of the second batch. ” 175
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Chapter 4