Monsanto dumped toxic waste in UK

[cal04]

Inquiry after chemicals found at site 30 years after their disposal

Evidence has emerged that the Monsanto chemical company paid contractors to dump thousands of tonnes of highly toxic waste in British landfill sites, knowing that their chemicals were liable to contaminate wildlife and people. Yesterday the Environment Agency said it had launched an inquiry after the chemicals were found to be polluting underground water supplies and the atmosphere 30 years after they were dumped.

According to the agency it could cost up to £100m to clean up a site in south Wales that has been called "one of the most contaminated" in the country.


A previously unseen government report read by the Guardian shows that 67 chemicals, including Agent Orange derivatives, dioxins and PCBs which could have been made only by Monsanto, are leaking from one unlined porous quarry that was not authorised to take chemical wastes.

(snip)
Much of the new information about Monsanto's activities in Britain in the 1960s and early 1970s has emerged from court papers filed in the US and previously unseen internal company documents. They show how the company knew from 1965 onwards that the PCBs - polychlorinated biphenyls used mainly as flame retardants and insulaters - manufactured in the US and at its plant in Newport, south Wales, under the trade name Aroclor, were accumulating in human milk, rivers, fish and seafood, wildlife and plants.

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/waste/story/0,,2011024,00.html

[silverweb]

1. OMG.

They need to pay full cleanup costs and CRIMINAL PENALTIES. And full global investigations should commence to determine where else they have done this sort of thing, because you know they have.

I hope this is the beginning of a chain of events that puts the filthy bastards out of business completely and permanently.

[Erika]

2. I knew a Monsato exec who had no open discussions

He was a tortured man. He sold his soul and knew so.

[silverweb]

3. How anyone can do such a thing....

It's more than I can ever understand.

[acmavm]

4. I don't know but apparently it is very easy for corporate America to

kill for money.

[silverweb]

8. Apparently.

And we're supposed to be "proud" of the system that has spawned and encourages this evil.

[donsu]

5. Monsanto dumps toxic waste where ever they do business

Monsanto is a criminal corp.

[gratuitous]

6. Any mutant life forms spawned by this dump will get a Monsanto patent

So they'll still be able to make money out of this, mostly by suing any mutants that come after the first batch for "stealing" Monsanto's patent.

(Side note: This is in reference to a Canadian lawsuit a few years ago in which a farmer next to a farmer growing Monsanto-patented crops was found to have some Monsanto plants in his fields, apparently from seed or pollen blown over to his land by the wind. Monsanto sued the non-Monsanto farmer for "stealing" patented plants, and the Canadian courts agreed with Monsanto and ordered the non-Monsanto farmer to pay damages.)

[NotGivingUp]

9. i was just reading about this yesterday. i hate monsanto!!!

[mzmolly]

7. My step father did construction for a huge local company - known nationally. One of his assignments

was to dump barrels of "???" into the Mississippi late at night. He quit after the first night, and reported the incident to authorities. We never heard a thing about it.

This is all to common, unfortunately.

CRIMINAL penalties should be brought against those responsible. :(