Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 3: The politics of wastethis. A third option is to package and seal it on site, but at the risk of future leaks.Together with local community groups, groundWork and Earthlife have calledfor the imported waste to be returned to sender or, where the sender cannot beidentified, to Europe since “it is a British company that allowed this to happen inthe first place”. 20 European Green parties have supported this solution.The DEAT appears unable to find a workable solution. In 2003, it issued Guernica,as Thor now calls itself, with a directive to clean up. This seems not to have worked.In 2004, DEAT itself commissioned an environmental impact assessment (EIA) forthe treatment and disposal of the waste and decontamination of the site. In 2007,after two years of official silence, the consultants produced an inventory of the wasteand recommended on-site retorting – another version of incineration. At the sametime, the DEAT handed the ball back to Guernica, announcing that its EIA processwould close and Guernica would start another EIA. A year later, nothing more hasbeen heard.Guernica, meanwhile, still wants to trade ‘recovered mercury’.The campaign against Thor reinforced the broader campaign against toxic trade. Itwon an early and significant victory when the state banned toxic waste imports in1990. On the quiet, government nevertheless allowed Thor an exemption providedthat it reprocessed only the wastes from products that it had produced in the firstplace. Even then, the Department of Health issued a licence to import mercury wastefrom a plant in Indonesia, owned by a US transnational corporation, which did notuse its products.The Thor campaign also set the pattern for coalition campaigning. Earthlife made apoint of engaging with organisations representing people directly affected by pollutionas well as networking internationally for information and support. This principlewas given organisational form at a conference organised by Earthlife in 1992. Theconference emphasised the connection between relations of power and environmentaldegradation and aimed to connect South African civil society with internationaldebates. The concept of environmental justice, introduced by US activist Dana Alston,resonated with the experience of South African delegates. News received during the20Rico Euripidou and Bobby Peek, Still nothing happening at Thor, groundWork Newsletter, September 2007.- 38 - groundWork - Wasting the Nation