Greens oppose US scheme to dump toxic used mercury in India

Mumbai/New Delhi, India, Dec. 27— US and India-based activist groups have joined hands to prevent the export of a 118 ton-stockpile of used and toxic mercury from the United States to an undisclosed destination in India, according to Indian citizen groups Toxics Link, Basel Action Network and Greenpeace. The mercury stockpile, was recovered from HoltraChem, a Maine-based chlorine-caustic factory. D.F. Goldsmith and Metal Corp., an Illinois-based trader has purchased the stockpile, allegedly for shipment to a secret recipient in India.

Companies and government agencies in the US do not want to adopt the stockpile because of the severe environmental liabilities and potential environmental risks associated with storing the metal, which is known to be a deadly nerve poison.

Following protests by Maine-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the governor of Maine approached the US government to prevent the export and instead add the stockpile to the existing store of used mercury in the US Department of Defense’s stockpile, because Maine had no facilities to store the material. The US government has refused to accept the mercury stockpile claiming they lack authority to do so.

“The United States government is complicit in this act of poisoning the poor for profit. It is deplorable that we are preparing to send to India is a highly toxic substance that we do not want to live with in the United States,” said Lisa Finaldi, Greenpeace USA’s toxics campaigner. “Even as we phase out this toxic metal from our products and lives in the United States, we shamelessly export it to industrializing countries, knowing fully well the magnitude of damage to human lives and environment it can cause in these countries.”

Faced with growing environmental concerns surrounding the toxic metal, many US cities, states, and hospitals are phasing out mercury thermometers as a first step towards eliminating mercury releases into the environment. Boston, San Francisco, and New Hampshire have outlawed mercury thermometers. In September, 11 leading retailers and manufacturers, including Walmart, Kmart Corporation and Meijer’s Supermarkets, announced that they would terminate sales of mercury fever thermometers.

“Likewise in India, this import can preempt fledgling attempts by Indian groups to frame rules to handle existing mercury contamination and to find alternatives to mercury,” said Basel Action Network spokesperson Ravi Agarwal in New Delhi.

Over the last few years, Greenpeace, Basel Action Network and Toxics Link have highlighted numerous instances of toxic trade, of hazardous waste dumping and the export of dirty, obsolete products or technologies by industrialized countries into India. India seems to be a preferred dumping ground for the West.

The activist groups have raised the matter with the US Embassy and the government of India, and have alerted trade unions, including the dock workers unions. The groups have also expressed their appreciation to US citizens groups and Maine governor Angus King for their efforts to sensitize the US government on this latest instance of “toxic trade.”

“We have had enough of ‘take-this’ US imperialism, where unwanted and dangerous substances, technologies and wastes are routinely dumped on industrializing countries,” said Madhumita Dutta, an activist with New Delhi-based Toxics Link. “India must refuse the import of this horribly toxic and persistent poison, and instead begin to work on policies that phase out our own use of the toxic metal at home.”

Source: Basel Action Network: http://www.ban.org

USDA imposes standards for organic food labeling

Compiled by D.D. Hallbrook

Washington, DC, Dec. 20— The Department of Agriculture today announced final adoption of the first standards that the federal government has ever imposed for the labeling and processing of organic foods.

The new standards, which were ordered by Congress and then took the department more than a decade to produce, ban the use of irradiation, biotechnology and sewer-sludge fertilizer for any food labeled organic.

The department planned to allow the use of all three methods when it introduced proposed regulations in 1997. But after comment from almost 300,000 people protesting their inclusion, the agency withdrew that proposal and started over.

Other major provisions of the rules issued today ban synthetic pesticides and fertilizers in the growing of organic food, and antibiotics in meat labeled organic. These provisions were a part of the earlier proposal.

At a news conference held in the produce aisles of a local Fresh Fields store, one of a nationwide chain of natural-foods supermarkets, Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman called the new regulations “the strongest and most comprehensive organic standard in the world.”

Katherine DiMatteo, a spokeswoman for the organic foods industry, welcomed the regulations.

“The long wait for the final rule was worthwhile,” said DiMatteo, executive director of the Organic Trade Association. “The USDA has delivered a strict organic standard that is a great boost to the organic industry. In no way is this final rule less than what the industry wanted.”

The regulations come at a time of soaring popularity for organic foods. Domestic sales have increased more than 20 percent annually each year since 1990, and reached $6 billion last year.

The niche has become significant enough that large conventional-food companies have been buying up smaller organic companies. General Mills owns Cascadian Farm and Muir Glen Tomatoes; Heinz owns Earth’s Best Baby Food; J. M. Smucker sells Santa Cruz and Knudsen juices.

Organics have also become an increasingly important factor in overseas sales, although until now the European Union and Japan have made it difficult for American exporters of those foods to do business, because they do not want to deal with the 44 different state and private organic certifying agencies in the United States.

When the new rules take effect, starting on Feb. 19, importers will have to deal with only one regulating body: the Agriculture Department. (Similarly, that existing patchwork of standards will be superseded by the new regulations in the domestic market as well.)

There are currently 12,000 organic farmers in the United States and that number is rising by 12% each year, while other sectors of farming are seeing a decline in producers.

In a press release issued by the Minnesota-based Organic Consumers Association (OCA), pure food activist Ronnie Cummins concludes, “Although the new federal regulations on organic food and crops put out by the USDA on December 20 basically meet the demands of the organic community in a technical sense, the USDA’s so-called National Organic Program (NOP) is a joke. The NOP is designed to placate the organic community while meanwhile withholding the necessary funds from the organic sector so that organic agriculture remains a small niche market, posing no real threat to the “business as usual” practices of corporate agribusiness and genetic engineering.”

Cummins notes that the USDA will hand out $30 billion dollars in taxpayers money to conventional (non-organic) agribusiness over the next 12 months—while investing a tiny sum, less than $10 million dollars, in organic.

“A full $17 billion of our tax money will be handed over in the form of corporate welfare to the nation’s largest (the top10%) factory farms this year. Until billions, not millions, are allocated for helping hundreds of thousands (not just a few thousand) of US family farmers convert to organic, the organic food system will remain a small niche market in the USA,” the OCA said in a statement.

“The rule will assist organic producers who want to export their products,” said Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, author of the law that called for the regulations.

While the Bush administration could try to overturn the rule, which does not become fully effective until 2002, this seems unlikely, given the importance of overseas sales and the support for regulation among large numbers of organic food consumers.

The regulations divide organic labeling into four categories:

•Products that are labeled “100 percent organic” must contain only organic ingredients.

•The ingredients of products labeled “organic” must be at least 95 percent organic by weight.

•Processed products that contain at least 70 percent organic ingredients may be labeled “made with organic ingredients,” and as many as three of those ingredients may be listed on the front of the package. This is a stricter standard than one proposed earlier, which would have required only 50 percent organic ingredients.

•Processed products with less than 70 percent organic ingredients may list those ingredients on the information panel but may not carry the term “organic” anywhere on the front of the package.

•Products meeting the requirements for “100 percent organic,” “organic,” and “made with organic ingredients” may display those terms and the percentage of organic content on the front. And a “USDA” seal may appear on products in the first two categories (and in their advertisements), but not on products in the two others.

As a concession to the National Food Processors Association, a trade group made up mostly of conventional food processors, the Agriculture Department changed the organic seal from an originally proposed shield like the one that goes on meat, eggs and other products that are government-inspected to a circle.

The association had also asked the agency to put a disclaimer on organic labels, so that they would say such food was no safer and no more nutritious than conventional food. But the agency refused.

“It must be made clear that the organic label on certain foods does not mean that they are safer or more nutritious than conventional food products,” said Kelly Johnston, executive vice president for the National Food Processors Association. Glickman said the organic label was a marketing tool and was not a statement about food safety, nutrition or quality.

Cummins attributes health and safety concerns to the rise in consumer preference toward organic foods.

“Of course organic food is safer and more nutritious than chemical-intensive and genetically engineered agriculture’s ‘industrial food,’” said Cummins. “Not only does organic food contain more trace minerals and other valuable nutrients, but of course it’s not laced with pesticide and drug residues, nor is it generally engineered. And of course it’s not riddled with e-Coli 0157, salmonella, listeria, campylobachter, or any of the other filth and pathogens which are routinely found in factory farm meat and animal products.”

Sources: New York Times, Organic Consumers’ Association www.purefood.org