Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 3: The politics of wasteBox 3: Thor ChemicalsThor, a British transnational corporation, set up a mercury waste processing plantat Cato Ridge outside Durban in the late 1970s, just as the anti-apartheid sanctionscampaign was beginning to bite. Thor was soon also on the run from Britishregulators. Successive inspections at its British plant showed mercury in the air upto 20 times the legal limit and, in 1987, the regulators told Thor to clean up or facecourt action. Rather than do either, it closed down the British plant but expandedat Cato Ridge where it could draw on a pool of cheap labour from the impoverishedInchanga area which fell under the authority of the KwaZulu homeland. By this time,Thor was clandestinely taking waste from the US and Britain at US$1,000 a tonne.Authorities on both sides sanctioned the trade. In 1986, the US EnvironmentalProtection Agency accepted Thor’s claim that the plant was the largest mercury‘recycling’ operation in the world and had no environmental impacts. South Africanauthorities allowed Thor to accept more waste than it could reprocess and effectivelycondoned the use of the site as a dump.In 1988, local utility Umgeni Water traced mercury contamination from 15kilometres downstream in the Mgeni River to the Mncgweni stream which risesnext to the Thor factory. The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF)was alerted but took no action. Over a year later, a frustrated Umgeni official leakedthe story to the press. Earthlife launched a campaign that drew in the ChemicalWorkers’ Industrial Union (CWIU), local communities and internationalenvironmental organisations. The coalition mounted protests at Thor and at the USplant of American Cyanamide, a major exporter of mercury waste. It also establishedthat the body burden of most workers was way over the limit for mercury. TheDepartment of Manpower, responsible for occupational health, was pushed intomaking a formal enquiry at Thor in 1992. It found “gross negligence leading tothe poisoning of at least 29 workers” [Butler 1997: 200]. In 1993, three ex-Thorworkers died from mercury poisoning.Under pressure, the provincial attorney general charged Thor with culpable homicideand transgressions of health and safety laws. It bungled the prosecution and Thor waslet off with a plea bargain and a minimal fine of R13,500. The outcome appeareddesigned to protect Thor and, in response, the parent company was sued in Britain.Thor finally settled out of court in 1996 for R9.4 million against the claims of20 workers whose blood samples showed high levels of mercury contamination.- 36 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation