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There is no justification for India refusing to sign the Minamata Convention.
Why does the Government of India drag its feet when it comes to
international environmental
agreements? Decidedly, not all are in the
country’s interests, or at least that is the official perception. But
surely something like the Minamata Convention on Mercury that many
countries signed at a recent meeting in Japan, should not invite any
second thoughts. Yet India, along with Russia, has held back and not yet
signed the convention.
The convention draws its name from the shameful and wilful poisoning
of the waters of Minamata Bay in Japan’s Kumamoto prefecture by the
Chisso Corporation. The company used mercury as a catalyst to produce
acetaldehyde. The untreated waste water from this process was emptied
out into the bay from 1932 to 1968. In the beginning, there was little
knowledge of the impact of organic mercury, or methyl mercury on the
human system. In 1958, first animals, principally cats, and then humans
began showing symptoms of what appeared to be an unknown disease whose
symptoms included partial paralysis, convulsions, loss of hearing and
sight. It took years of research and investigation by representatives of
the affected people in Minamata before the Chisso Corporation admitted
that the methyl mercury discharged from their factory into the water had
caused the nerve damage that had led to hundreds being affected, and
many deaths.
The story did not end there. Despite this admission, the corporation
continued to discharge untreated waste. It has taken the victims of
mercury poisoning in Minamata and surrounding areas over five decades to
get justice and compensation, and even today there are affected groups
that continue to battle with the company and the government. Since
Minamata, there have been numerous examples of similar callousness by
industry, not least by Union Carbide in Bhopal.
Apart from the larger lesson on industrial waste and its impact on
the environment and humans, the Minamata tragedy is specific to the
problems with mercury. This is a naturally occurring mineral and in its
metallic form it does not have an adverse effect. But when it becomes
methyl mercury, humans and animals easily absorb it. It remains within
the system for much longer than other minerals and ultimately hits the
central nervous system. Later studies proved that it was congenital and
that women could pass it on to their children. In fact, according to the
World Health Organisation, there is no safe threshold for mercury.
Mercury poisoning is popularly known as the Minamata disease because of
the discovery of its effects on the unfortunate people living in that
area.
Given the many uses of mercury, it is clear that it cannot be banned
altogether. It is extensively used, for instance, in gold mining where
it helps separate gold from the rock and the sediment. In fact, mercury
emissions are highest from the enormous number of small-scale and
therefore unregulated artisanal gold mines around the world, even more
than the mercury emitted by coal-burning power plants. The convention
recognises this and only asks for a phasing out of the use of mercury
over a 30-year period. However, it does recommend a ban by 2020 of the
import and export of mercury-containing products including electrical
switches and relays, batteries, lamps and bulbs, thermometers, blood
pressure-measuring devices and certain cosmetics and soaps. If 50
countries that have signed the convention get it ratified by their
elected bodies, it will come into force as an international convention.
It will then be mandatory for all countries to formulate their own laws
reflecting the main provisions of the convention.
It would be virtually impossible to ascertain how many people in
India are affected by mercury poisoning. For instance, a decade ago,
thanks to the intervention of environmental groups, a major
multinational, Hindustan Lever Limited, now Hindustan Unilever Limited,
was charged with disposing of mercury from its thermometer factory in
Kodaikanal without following proper procedures. The broken thermometers
were dumped on land behind the factory, resulting in the mercury
leaching into the soil. As in Minamata Bay, it required the intervention
of environmental groups to establish this unpardonable attitude towards
the disposal of dangerous waste. Ultimately, the company had to arrange
for the soil from behind the plant to be removed. Given the background
of the devastating consequences of mercury poisoning as has been
extensively documented from Minamata Bay, and the fact that in India
regulating waste discharge from chemical industries is notoriously lax,
there is simply no justification for refusing to sign such a convention.
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