Press Release
BANI Supports WTO Challenge against Subsidy for Deadly Asbestos Fibers
New Delhi: Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) appeals to the imminent G-20 and G-8 summit during June 26-27 in Toronto to persuade Canadian and Russian government to stop promoting export of asbestos which is an exercise in trade distortion. Dr Manmohan Singh is also attending the summit.
While fifty-two countries have banned all forms of asbestos, India continues to use it under the seemingly insurmountable influence of countries like Canada and Russia, the major asbestos producers of the world.
BANI support EU Parliamentarian’s call for WTO Challenge of $58 Million Loan Guarantee Subsidy for Deadly Export of White Asbestos (Chrysotile asbestos).
The open-pit Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec province, Canada has exported huge amounts of asbestos for the past century. Now, its surface asbestos supply exhausted, the company is under bankruptcy protection. After not being able to find financing on the private market, the mine's owners have sought a $58 million loan guarantee from the Quebec government to open a new underground mine so that it can export asbestos to developing countries for the next 25 years. Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, a loan guarantee that facilitates financing on terms more favorable than otherwise available in the market is considered a subsidy. The subsidy is expected to be approved by July 1.
BANI appeals to Dr Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister to take cognisance of the asbestos that would be mined at the Jeffrey Mine which would ultimately take toll in India would not enter commerce in Canada. Canada has trade obligations under WTO that forbids export subsidization. While WTO rules generally discipline government subsidies, export subsidies are explicitly forbidden.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minister of Natural Resources, Christian Paradis, is a leading advocate of this major subsidy to boost Canadian exports despite trade pacts rules that forbid export subsidy trade distortions.
BANI endorses Stephen Hughes, European parliamentarian (UK) call for an inquiry seeking a WTO challenge of the proposed Canadian subsidy. The European Union has banned all use of asbestos and extraction, manufacture and processing of asbestos products in 2005.
Public Citizen, a nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C, is right in saying that a new WTO challenge of a new Canadian export subsidy certainly would make a mockery of the Canadian government's pre-summit briefings that have criticized other countries' purported slide toward protectionism and trade distortions.
Notably, Quebec and the rest of Canada, like other industrialized countries, refuse to use asbestos and are experiencing an epidemic of asbestos-related disease from past use. The world's leading health authorities have called for asbestos to be banned.
BANI endorses Public Citizen's statement underlining the hypocrisy of Canadian government which is violating human rights of workers and consumers in developing countries like India by knowingly exposing them to cancer causing asbestos fibers.
For Details: Gopal Krishna, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)-ToxicsWatch Alliance, New Delhi, Mb: 9818089660, Blog: banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
Public Citizen’s website: www.citizen.org
Friday, June 25, 2010
EU Parliamentarian Calls for WTO Challenge of $58 Million Loan Guarantee Subsidy for Deadly Exports
For Immediate Release:
June 24, 2010
Contact: Bryan Buchanan (202) 454-5108
On Eve of G-20 Summit, Canadian Government Bashes Others for Trade Distortions While Poised to OK Huge Subsidy for Asbestos Exports
EU Parliamentarian Calls for WTO Challenge of $58 Million Loan Guarantee Subsidy for Deadly Exports
WASHINGTON, D.C. - "Hypocrisy!" may be the leading headline coming out of the imminent G-20 and G-8 summits as news of host country Canada's pending $58 million loan guarantee subsidy to restart Canadian asbestos exports slams into the government's recent pre-summit lectures about the need for participating countries to avoid trade distortions, Public Citizen said today.
"The Canadian government endlessly chastises other countries' purported trade distortions but apparently the Harper administration's fealty to free trade does not apply to Canada creating a massive new subsidy that would boost exports of a deadly substance, asbestos," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division.
The open-pit Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, has exported huge amounts of asbestos for the past century. Now, its surface asbestos supply exhausted, the company is under bankruptcy protection. After not being able to find financing on the private market, the mine's owners have sought a $58 million loan guarantee from the Quebec government to open a new underground mine so that it can export asbestos to developing countries for the next 25 years. Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, a loan guarantee that facilitates financing on terms more favorable than otherwise available in the market is considered a subsidy. The subsidy is expected to be approved by July 1.
Very little of the asbestos that would be mined at the Jeffrey Mine would enter commerce in Canada. Almost all of it would be exported - with much going to WTO-member nations to whom Canada has trade obligations that forbid export subsidization. While WTO rules generally discipline government subsidies, export subsidies are explicitly forbidden.
The Harper government attacked U.S. Buy America provisions in the 2009 Economic Stimulus bill that fully complied with U.S., WTO and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) obligations. Yet, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minister of Natural Resources, Christian Paradis, is a leading advocate of this major subsidy to boost Canadian exports despite trade pacts rules that forbid export subsidy trade distortions.
"You do not have to be a fan of the current trade rules to be outraged by the stunning hypocrisy of the Canadian government supporting a massive government subsidy to resume operations at an asbestos mine whose deadly product will mainly be exported to developing countries," Wallach said.
European parliamentarian Stephen Hughes (U.K.) recently tabled an inquiry calling for a WTO challenge of the proposed Canadian subsidy. The European Union has banned all use of asbestos and extraction, manufacture and processing of asbestos products in 2005.
"A new WTO challenge of a new Canadian export subsidy certainly would make a mockery of the Canadian government's pre-summit briefings that have criticized other countries' purported slide toward protectionism and trade distortions," Wallach said.
Quebec and the rest of Canada, like other industrialized countries, refuse to use asbestos and are experiencing an epidemic of asbestos-related disease from past use. The world's leading health authorities have called for asbestos to be banned. Fifty-two countries have banned all forms of asbestos.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org
June 24, 2010
Contact: Bryan Buchanan (202) 454-5108
On Eve of G-20 Summit, Canadian Government Bashes Others for Trade Distortions While Poised to OK Huge Subsidy for Asbestos Exports
EU Parliamentarian Calls for WTO Challenge of $58 Million Loan Guarantee Subsidy for Deadly Exports
WASHINGTON, D.C. - "Hypocrisy!" may be the leading headline coming out of the imminent G-20 and G-8 summits as news of host country Canada's pending $58 million loan guarantee subsidy to restart Canadian asbestos exports slams into the government's recent pre-summit lectures about the need for participating countries to avoid trade distortions, Public Citizen said today.
"The Canadian government endlessly chastises other countries' purported trade distortions but apparently the Harper administration's fealty to free trade does not apply to Canada creating a massive new subsidy that would boost exports of a deadly substance, asbestos," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch division.
The open-pit Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec, has exported huge amounts of asbestos for the past century. Now, its surface asbestos supply exhausted, the company is under bankruptcy protection. After not being able to find financing on the private market, the mine's owners have sought a $58 million loan guarantee from the Quebec government to open a new underground mine so that it can export asbestos to developing countries for the next 25 years. Under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, a loan guarantee that facilitates financing on terms more favorable than otherwise available in the market is considered a subsidy. The subsidy is expected to be approved by July 1.
Very little of the asbestos that would be mined at the Jeffrey Mine would enter commerce in Canada. Almost all of it would be exported - with much going to WTO-member nations to whom Canada has trade obligations that forbid export subsidization. While WTO rules generally discipline government subsidies, export subsidies are explicitly forbidden.
The Harper government attacked U.S. Buy America provisions in the 2009 Economic Stimulus bill that fully complied with U.S., WTO and North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) obligations. Yet, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minister of Natural Resources, Christian Paradis, is a leading advocate of this major subsidy to boost Canadian exports despite trade pacts rules that forbid export subsidy trade distortions.
"You do not have to be a fan of the current trade rules to be outraged by the stunning hypocrisy of the Canadian government supporting a massive government subsidy to resume operations at an asbestos mine whose deadly product will mainly be exported to developing countries," Wallach said.
European parliamentarian Stephen Hughes (U.K.) recently tabled an inquiry calling for a WTO challenge of the proposed Canadian subsidy. The European Union has banned all use of asbestos and extraction, manufacture and processing of asbestos products in 2005.
"A new WTO challenge of a new Canadian export subsidy certainly would make a mockery of the Canadian government's pre-summit briefings that have criticized other countries' purported slide toward protectionism and trade distortions," Wallach said.
Quebec and the rest of Canada, like other industrialized countries, refuse to use asbestos and are experiencing an epidemic of asbestos-related disease from past use. The world's leading health authorities have called for asbestos to be banned. Fifty-two countries have banned all forms of asbestos.
###
Public Citizen is a national, nonprofit public interest organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.citizen.org
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Stop subsidy to asbestos mining industry & health disaster
Stop the subsidy to asbestos mining industry & health disaster
To
Mr Pierre Arcand
Minister of International Relations
Québec Government Office in Mumbai
Consulate General of Canada
6th floor Fort House
221, Dr. D.N. Road
Mumbai – 400 001
Maharashtra, India
Phone : 91-22-6749-4444
Fax : 91-22-6749-4454
Sub-Stop the subsidy to asbestos mining industry & health disaster
Dear Mr Pierre Arcand,
The purpose of this letter is to protest against the Quebec government (Canada) which is all set to provide a large subsidy to save the asbestos mining industry in Canada unmindful of its health consequences in developing countries like India. We are aware that Quebec has only one asbestos mine left, which is nearly exhausted and employs 340. The asbestos cement sheeting industry is growing at a healthy 10-12 per cent a year in India.
We are deeply saddened and disturbed by Quebec government’s double standard on asbestos trade which illustrates Canada's utter callousness towards human rights of asbestos workers and consumers in India. It is unbecoming of Canada to put profits before people unmindful of incurable diseases and preventable deaths .
It is deeply immoral to support an industrial activity which is leading to yet another industrial disaster due to criminal corporate negligence and governmental patronage.
Canada exports the cancer causing fiber to India but prefers not to use it domestically. In India, it is imported without any restriction. Canada and Russia are the biggest exporters of white asbestos. In 2007, Canada exported almost Ninety five percent of the white asbestos it mined and out of it forty-three percent was shipped to India.
I am writing to you on behalf of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), which is working to make India asbestos free to save workers and citizens from cancer causing fibers of death.
In the face massive asbestos exposure underway in India, the recent ban on asbestos laden US ship, The White Asbestos (Ban on Use and Import) Bill, 2009 introduced in Rajya Sabha (Upper House) and the ban asbestos order of the Kerala State Human Rights Commission, environment, labour, human rights and health groups appeal to the Prime Minister and to all the parliamentarians to ensure that manufacture, use and trade of asbestos is banned in India. Details of the bill here.
The chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) industry is acting as merchants of death even as workers and consumers are routinely being exposed to deadly asbestos fibers. Notably, worker protections and enviro-occupational health infrastructure are weak or non-existent in India. The silence of the government in the face of workers and consumers who are sick and dying from asbestos-caused cancer is deafening. The Indian parliament and Canadian House of Commons must act to stop the governments from protecting the companies that knowingly commit corporate crimes as is the case with the asbestos industry which is hiding behind manifest immoral patronage of the governments.
It is noteworthy that a US corporation Dow Chemicals Company which is liable for Union Carbide Corporation’s legacy issues such as Bhopal's industrial disaster, held itself liable for asbestos issues and put aside $2.2 billion as “potential cost of resolving pending and future claims against Carbide”, such corporate crimes have become the order of the day because of government's connivance.
We appreciate the civil society in Canada that has called for the, end of asbestos mining, consistent with the position of the World Health Organization (WHO) and over 50 countries that have banned asbestos. A letter addressed to Premier Charest, and jointly endorsed by numerous organizations, was handed over.
We have called upon Prime Minister of India and Quebec’s Premier to stand up to the powerful asbestos industry in both countries which is spending millions of dollars to intimidate and silence workers, doctors, scientists and activists who are all for banning asbestos. Victims of asbestos related diseases, who are dying a slow death with no legal and medical remedy in sight.
We understand that if the new mining operation opens, it will export asbestos to poor countries for the next 25 years. The Quebec propaganda machine using Canadian embassies has consistently worked to thwart public health efforts around the world by promoting killer fibers of Canadian asbestos. Earlier on March 23, 2010 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper deemed it fit to give $250,000 of taxpayer money to the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute), a group that promotes the use of asbestos in developing countries. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources meeting on 22 March dealt with the $250,000 funding for the Chrysotile Institute.
The Economic Development Agency of Canada and the Department of Natural Resources have given the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute) more than $20 million over the past 25 years. In February 2008, Harper government had announced gnt of $750,000 to the Chrysotile Institute for the next three years. We are shocked to note that your government is feigning ignorance about WHO estimates at least 100,000 deaths from asbestos every year and the total may eventually be 5-10 million.
Public health researchers are deeply concerned about the alarming rate of consumption. In 2008, the use of 348,538 tonnes of asbestos made India the world's 3rd largest asbestos market; since 2004, consumption has risen by 83%. Cumulative asbestos usage in India has been estimated at 7,343,612 tonnes. In the UK consumption of 6 million tonnes has produced the country's worst epidemic of occupational disease and death. The condition in India due to asbestos is already an unacknowledged public health disaster with no medical infrastructure to deal with such enviro-occupational diseases.
The safe use of any form of asbestos is “impossible anywhere in the world”.
On behalf of BANI, we appeal to your government and Canadian government through you to adopt safer alternatives of fibers of death instead of promoting it.
Warm Regards
Gopal Krishna
Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)-ToxicsWatch Alliance
New Delhi
Mb: 9818089660
Blog: banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
Cc
Prime Minister of Canada
Prime Minister of India
Premier of Quebec
Union Environment & Forests Minister
Union Ministry of Mines
Union Commerce Ministry
Union Finance Ministry
Union Chemicals Ministry
Cabinet Secretary, Government of India
Union Environment Secretary
To
Mr Pierre Arcand
Minister of International Relations
Québec Government Office in Mumbai
Consulate General of Canada
6th floor Fort House
221, Dr. D.N. Road
Mumbai – 400 001
Maharashtra, India
Phone : 91-22-6749-4444
Fax : 91-22-6749-4454
Sub-Stop the subsidy to asbestos mining industry & health disaster
Dear Mr Pierre Arcand,
The purpose of this letter is to protest against the Quebec government (Canada) which is all set to provide a large subsidy to save the asbestos mining industry in Canada unmindful of its health consequences in developing countries like India. We are aware that Quebec has only one asbestos mine left, which is nearly exhausted and employs 340. The asbestos cement sheeting industry is growing at a healthy 10-12 per cent a year in India.
We are deeply saddened and disturbed by Quebec government’s double standard on asbestos trade which illustrates Canada's utter callousness towards human rights of asbestos workers and consumers in India. It is unbecoming of Canada to put profits before people unmindful of incurable diseases and preventable deaths .
It is deeply immoral to support an industrial activity which is leading to yet another industrial disaster due to criminal corporate negligence and governmental patronage.
Canada exports the cancer causing fiber to India but prefers not to use it domestically. In India, it is imported without any restriction. Canada and Russia are the biggest exporters of white asbestos. In 2007, Canada exported almost Ninety five percent of the white asbestos it mined and out of it forty-three percent was shipped to India.
I am writing to you on behalf of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), which is working to make India asbestos free to save workers and citizens from cancer causing fibers of death.
In the face massive asbestos exposure underway in India, the recent ban on asbestos laden US ship, The White Asbestos (Ban on Use and Import) Bill, 2009 introduced in Rajya Sabha (Upper House) and the ban asbestos order of the Kerala State Human Rights Commission, environment, labour, human rights and health groups appeal to the Prime Minister and to all the parliamentarians to ensure that manufacture, use and trade of asbestos is banned in India. Details of the bill here.
The chrysotile asbestos (white asbestos) industry is acting as merchants of death even as workers and consumers are routinely being exposed to deadly asbestos fibers. Notably, worker protections and enviro-occupational health infrastructure are weak or non-existent in India. The silence of the government in the face of workers and consumers who are sick and dying from asbestos-caused cancer is deafening. The Indian parliament and Canadian House of Commons must act to stop the governments from protecting the companies that knowingly commit corporate crimes as is the case with the asbestos industry which is hiding behind manifest immoral patronage of the governments.
It is noteworthy that a US corporation Dow Chemicals Company which is liable for Union Carbide Corporation’s legacy issues such as Bhopal's industrial disaster, held itself liable for asbestos issues and put aside $2.2 billion as “potential cost of resolving pending and future claims against Carbide”, such corporate crimes have become the order of the day because of government's connivance.
We appreciate the civil society in Canada that has called for the, end of asbestos mining, consistent with the position of the World Health Organization (WHO) and over 50 countries that have banned asbestos. A letter addressed to Premier Charest, and jointly endorsed by numerous organizations, was handed over.
We have called upon Prime Minister of India and Quebec’s Premier to stand up to the powerful asbestos industry in both countries which is spending millions of dollars to intimidate and silence workers, doctors, scientists and activists who are all for banning asbestos. Victims of asbestos related diseases, who are dying a slow death with no legal and medical remedy in sight.
We understand that if the new mining operation opens, it will export asbestos to poor countries for the next 25 years. The Quebec propaganda machine using Canadian embassies has consistently worked to thwart public health efforts around the world by promoting killer fibers of Canadian asbestos. Earlier on March 23, 2010 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper deemed it fit to give $250,000 of taxpayer money to the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute), a group that promotes the use of asbestos in developing countries. Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources meeting on 22 March dealt with the $250,000 funding for the Chrysotile Institute.
The Economic Development Agency of Canada and the Department of Natural Resources have given the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute) more than $20 million over the past 25 years. In February 2008, Harper government had announced gnt of $750,000 to the Chrysotile Institute for the next three years. We are shocked to note that your government is feigning ignorance about WHO estimates at least 100,000 deaths from asbestos every year and the total may eventually be 5-10 million.
Public health researchers are deeply concerned about the alarming rate of consumption. In 2008, the use of 348,538 tonnes of asbestos made India the world's 3rd largest asbestos market; since 2004, consumption has risen by 83%. Cumulative asbestos usage in India has been estimated at 7,343,612 tonnes. In the UK consumption of 6 million tonnes has produced the country's worst epidemic of occupational disease and death. The condition in India due to asbestos is already an unacknowledged public health disaster with no medical infrastructure to deal with such enviro-occupational diseases.
The safe use of any form of asbestos is “impossible anywhere in the world”.
On behalf of BANI, we appeal to your government and Canadian government through you to adopt safer alternatives of fibers of death instead of promoting it.
Warm Regards
Gopal Krishna
Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)-ToxicsWatch Alliance
New Delhi
Mb: 9818089660
Blog: banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
Cc
Prime Minister of Canada
Prime Minister of India
Premier of Quebec
Union Environment & Forests Minister
Union Ministry of Mines
Union Commerce Ministry
Union Finance Ministry
Union Chemicals Ministry
Cabinet Secretary, Government of India
Union Environment Secretary
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Funding for Lung Cancer Promotion
Brazil is the fifth largest producer after Russia, Canada, Kazakstan, China, and one of the major consumers of asbestos in the world.
On March 23, 2010 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper deemed it fit to give $250,000 of taxpayer money to the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute), a group that promotes the use of asbestos in developing countries. Canada's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources meeting on 22 March dealt with the $250,000 funding for the Chrysotile Institute.
The Economic Development Agency of Canada and the Department of Natural Resources have given the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute) more than $20 million over the past 25 years. In February 2008, Harper government announced another grant of $750,000 to the Chrysotile Institute for the next three years.
The statistics for overall incidence of/prevalence of environmental and occupational disease and injuries for India is not available and would not be available in near future as well.
As to data no asbestos related diseases in death, mo such data exists and there would not be any such data in future as well because no such data is being collected. There are just six occupational health institutes in the entire country that too in a decaying condition or are grappling with infrastructural problems.
With regard to occupational diseases in particular the only academic estimate available and which has been taken cognizance of (in 2004) by India's National Institute of Occupational Health is the WHO paper by James Leigh et al titled "Global Burden of Disease and Injury Due to Occupational Factors". It noted the "tendency to underreport work-related injuries and traumatic fatalities" in India which is "illustrated by the number reported by it. He has estimated an annual incidence of occupational disease between 924, 700 and 1, 902, 300 and 121, 000 deaths in India. The ILO-reported figures for India (200,000 nonfatal injuries per year, 687 fatal injuries per year) are so low that they are not believable.
Another estimate of occupational fatality rates in India has been made by Takala and Obadia based on Malaysian rates, giving a figure of 36,500 deaths per year. The paper by James Leigh et al used a mean of 45,000 deaths per year for India and 17 million injuries per year. There is no way to dig out data on asbestos disease out of such estimations.
On March 23, 2010 Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper deemed it fit to give $250,000 of taxpayer money to the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute), a group that promotes the use of asbestos in developing countries. Canada's Parliamentary Standing Committee on Natural Resources meeting on 22 March dealt with the $250,000 funding for the Chrysotile Institute.
The Economic Development Agency of Canada and the Department of Natural Resources have given the Chrysotile Institute (formerly called the Asbestos Institute) more than $20 million over the past 25 years. In February 2008, Harper government announced another grant of $750,000 to the Chrysotile Institute for the next three years.
The statistics for overall incidence of/prevalence of environmental and occupational disease and injuries for India is not available and would not be available in near future as well.
As to data no asbestos related diseases in death, mo such data exists and there would not be any such data in future as well because no such data is being collected. There are just six occupational health institutes in the entire country that too in a decaying condition or are grappling with infrastructural problems.
With regard to occupational diseases in particular the only academic estimate available and which has been taken cognizance of (in 2004) by India's National Institute of Occupational Health is the WHO paper by James Leigh et al titled "Global Burden of Disease and Injury Due to Occupational Factors". It noted the "tendency to underreport work-related injuries and traumatic fatalities" in India which is "illustrated by the number reported by it. He has estimated an annual incidence of occupational disease between 924, 700 and 1, 902, 300 and 121, 000 deaths in India. The ILO-reported figures for India (200,000 nonfatal injuries per year, 687 fatal injuries per year) are so low that they are not believable.
Another estimate of occupational fatality rates in India has been made by Takala and Obadia based on Malaysian rates, giving a figure of 36,500 deaths per year. The paper by James Leigh et al used a mean of 45,000 deaths per year for India and 17 million injuries per year. There is no way to dig out data on asbestos disease out of such estimations.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Letter of Union Ministry of Mines
Smt. Santha Sheela Nair
Secretary,
Union Ministry of Mines
Government of India
New Delhi
Subject-Comment on the proposal to lift technical ban on chrysotile mining & the draft guidelines
Madam,
This with reference to the meeting held in the Sashtri Bhavan on the possibility of lifting the current technical ban on mining chrysotile asbestos and the proposed guidelines prepared by Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), Union Ministry of Mines on 28/4/2010. May I submit that it appeared that the meeting was convened at the behest of the “mine owners of Chrysotile Asbestos Mines” from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.
I would like to be very specific and will make my submission based on identifiable references.
In the first of this submission I will comments on the DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING and in the second part I will deal with the proposal to lift the ban on renewal of leases for Chrysotile Asbestos Mines (the arguments hold true for amphibole variety as well)
I. COMMENTS ON DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING
I submit that IBM has shown complete disregard towards the directions and observations of the Supreme Court of India and occupational and environment rights organisations and trade unions in drafting the guidelines. The Court has held in the Consumer Education and Research Centre and Others versus Union of India decided on 27.1.1995 and reported in 1995 (3) SCC 42.. saying, “The development of the carcinogenic risk due to asbestos or any other carcinogenic agent, does not require continuous exposure. The cancer risk does not cease when the exposure to the carcinogenic agent ceases, but rather the individual carries the increased risk for the remaining years of life. The exposure to asbestos and the resultant long tragic chain of adverse medical, legal and societal consequences, reminds the legal and social responsibility of the employer or producer not to endanger the workmen or the community or the society. He or it is not absolved of the inherent responsibility to the exposed workmen or the society at large. They have the responsibility-legal, moral and social to provide protective measures to the workmen and to the public or all those who are exposed to the harmful consequences of their products. Mere adoption of regulations for the enforcement has no real meaning and efficiency without professional, industrial and governmental resources and legal and moral determination to implement such regulations.”
Notably, BIS Standard mentioned in the proposed DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING in this regard is mere paper work with no teeth to act. In any case the global experience shows that "safe" and "controlled" mining, manufacture and use of asbestos and its products is not possible.
There is reference in the proposed guidelines as to how “No person shall be allowed to enter or remain in any work place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time, exceeding the TLV (threshold limit value) of 1 fibre per cc, perceptible through standard monitoring procedures” and “No person shall enter or remain in any place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time exceeding the limit of 1 fibre per cc in the working atmosphere, as observed in standard monitoring, unless such person is wearing approved type respiratory equipment to prevent the inhalation of such dust.” The fact is that WHO’s conclusions and recommendations for protection of human health in Environmental Health Criteria 203 for Chrysotile Asbestos concludes, “No threshold has been identified for carcinogenic risks”.
As to the BIS Standard, it should be noted that 1 f/cc is not a visibly dusty environment, and exposures in this range can only be detected and determined with air monitoring and microscopic analysis. I doubt that there is a record of such monitoring having ever been done.
In such grave circumstances, it is blind lust for profit at any human cost alone that makes people propose standards when there is no level at which it is deemed safe.
At the meeting, I had drawn your attention towards the resolution of International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted by the 95th Session of the International Labour Conference, in June 2006, which stated that “all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme)”.
The resolution noted that “an estimated 100,000 workers die every year from diseases caused by exposure to asbestos and resolved that “the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths”. This shows that the proposed guidelines by the chrysotile mining ministry is blind to the global trend, domestic occupational health conditions and the preventable deaths that occurs due to asbestos mining and its subsequent uses.
Notwithstanding the fact that the current legal position with regard to asbestos is that there is ban on the import/export of waste asbestos (dust & fibers) under the Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, the proposed guidelines misleadingly says, “Asbestos containing residue is covered under the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989. Accordingly, hazardous waste may be transported, treated and disposed of as per Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989”.
II COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSAL TO LIFT TECHNICAL BAN ON CHRYSOTILE MINES
I agree with you when you said that "Asbestos should be banned completely." I submit that so far only half step has been taken in India by banning export-import of asbestos wastes, by banning renewal of mining leases for asbestos and by banning use of schools in the schools of Kerela. The matter with regard to complete ban and decontamination of existing asbestos sites is pending before the Supreme Court of India and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Public interest creates a compelling logic for your ministry to ensure that the (illegal) mining of asbestos that has taken place has gone on under deplorable conditions is stopped as well and a a total ban be enforced. There is no basis for thinking that legalizing this will improve the state of affairs for the asbestos mine workers. It has not happened anywhere in the world.
I strongly disagree with the alarming and indefensible logic that unless complete ban on asbestos is announced and enforced, asbestos mining in our country can be permitted.
Renowned experts of environmental and occupational exposures who were in New Delhi at a conference in Maulana Azad Medical College, repeatedly urged government of India to harbour no illusions about the “controlled use” of asbestos because there is no realistic alternative to a ban. Moreover, even the best workplace controls cannot prevent occupational and environmental exposures to products in use or to
waste. The trend of alarming rise in the consumption of asbestos in India in hospitals, schools, homes and commercial buildings now resemble those that existed in the industrialized countries before the dangers of asbestos were widely recognized.
The Mines Ministry has consistently informed the parliament that "In view of the hazardous effect of asbestos mining on health, the Government has decided not to grant any new lease for mining of asbestos and minerals found along with asbestos. It does not renew the existing mining leases of asbestos. In view of the deleterious effect of asbestos mining on the health of the workers, the government have ordered the State governments in 1986 not to grant any new mining lease for asbestos (including chrysotile variety) in the country. In June 1993, government stopped the renewal of existing mining leases of asbestos in the country." The ministry has rightly recognised the poisonous nature of asbestos fibers. Is it reasonable and convincing to now argue that the ministry's wisdom about the "deleterious effect of asbestos mining on the health of the workers" all along was wrong just because mine owners would like the ministry to say so.
In view of the above and the growing global awareness about incurable diseases, may I request you to please initiate steps to stop the "Asbestos (that) is being mined in the areas already held under mining lease."
I am aware that at the behest of the mine owners, Ministry of Mines approved a S&T Project titled 'Study of Pollution Level in Asbestos Mines and processing plants in Rajasthan' in 1998. This study was done by Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) under pressure from mine owners. This study is ridden with conflict of interest and not surprisingly it chooses to ignore the medical and scientific evidence of the UN bodies. Followng a reply by Shri B.K. Handique, the Union Minister of Mines in the parliament on the matter of asbestos mining, I had written to him informing him about the disastrous consequences of lifting the van on renewal of leases. I await a pro-worker and pr-environment reply from him.
In the last one year, three former asbestos mine workers Jhalama Mana, Padma and Lal Singh from the Netaji Ka Bara and Upreta villages in the Jhadole district of Udaipur have died of the disease. The trio were part of 124 others who were checked by the National Institute of Occupation Health. However, the reports of the tests are still awaited. These are just samples from the workers who were working in asbestosis mines in this region. We are sure that there will be many more in reality. Victims of asbestos diseases from Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan suffer horrendous working conditions. The mine owners conceal hazards of working with asbestos, there is delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis and absence of legal remedy for their incurable diseases.
Public interest creates a compelling logic for your ministry to ensure that the (illegal) mining of asbestos that has taken place has gone on under deplorable conditions is stopped as well and a a total ban be enforced. There is no basis for thinking that legalizing this will improve the state of affairs for the asbestos mine workers. It has not happened anywhere in the world.
I strongly disagree with the alarming and indefensible logic that unless complete ban on asbestos is announced and enforced, asbestos mining in our country can be permitted.
Conclusion
As early as 1898, British government factory inspectors recognized adverse health effects associated with exposure to asbestos fibres. By the 1930s, the scientific evidence of the association between asbestos exposure and non-malignant respiratory disease was well established. (Reference: Barry Castleman, Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects. 5th ed. New York, NY: Aspen; 2005.) With the publication of Irving Selikoff’s study of insulation workers in 1964, the evidence of carcinogenicity was incontrovertible. (Reference: Selikoff IJ, Churg J, Hammond EC. Asbestos exposure and neoplasia. JAMA. 1964;188:22–26)
The scientific consensus today is that all types of asbestos fibres, including chrysotile, cause asbestosis, lung cancer, and other cancers most specifically mesothelioma.
At the International Conference entitled "Preventing Emerging Occupational and Environmental Risks in South Asia and Beyond" was organized by Centre for Occupational & Environmental Health (New Delhi), Collegium Ramazzini (Italy), and Drexel University, School of Public Health, Philadelphia, supported by Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India, and WHO, SEARO at capital’s Maulana Azad Medical College, Katja Radon from Germany informed that the social system in Germany are geared to provide pension to asbestos victims and their families besides compensation and the public health system provides universal coverage. The experts noted that the grave health hazards of asbestos are entirely preventable. The health risks of asbestos exposure are unacceptable. Indian health experts and officials admitted the almost complete absence of occupational and environmental health infrastructure and the cancer registry of the country of does not record occupational cancers.
Besides Russia's Ural Asbestos Mining & Ore Dressing Company, the world's largest manufacturer which is the largest supplier of chrysotile asbestos to India, Canada is the second largest supplier to India although over the past two decades, Canada has spent millions stripping asbestos from the walls and ceilings of schools, the Parliament Buildings, and hospitals because of the national outcry against asbestos making the government to stamp out asbestos use at home. But it is promoting its use in India.
To date, some 50 countries have banned asbestos. Asbestos is recognized as a carcinogen and is banned in all 27 European Union member countries besides Australia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Chile, and Japan. Unmindful of this between 1999 and 2001, Canada’s government spent about $575,000 appealing France’s 1997 asbestos ban, only to have the World Trade Organization uphold it. Undeterred, in 2004 Canada successfully spearheaded a coalition of naysayers—Indonesia, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Russia, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe—to block the addition of asbestos to the Rotterdam Convention, a chemical watchdog list.
Most recently, in late March 2010, Canadian Public Health Association called for a ban on the mining, transformation and export of Chrysotile Asbestos and recommended that Government of Canada to "Introduce legislation to ban the mining, use, and export of asbestos, Cease funding the Chrysotile Institute, Establish a national surveillance system and registry for asbestos-related diseases workers exposed to the various forms of asbestos with data storage for at least 40 years, including information on the diseases and exposure to the fibre from chrysotile asbestos, Provide just and adequate transition assistance income support and training for workers who would lose their jobs and financial assistance to communities that will impacted as a result of the closure of the asbestos mines and production industry and Ensure complete removal and replacement of asbestos-containing vermiculite insulation in housing on reserves.
Keeping the above facts in mind, I earnestly request you to support and recommend the proposal for a total ban on the mining, trade, manufacturing and use of asbestos and asbestos products of all forms.
I wish to thank Mr Anil Subramaniam for promptly sharing the draft guidelines. I would be glad to share more information and details with regard to asbestos.
Thanking you
Warm Regards
Gopal Krishna
Convener,
Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)
ToxicsWatch Alliance
Mb: 9818089660
\Website: www.toxicswatch.com
Blog: banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
Cc/ Mr Anil Subramaniam, Under Secretary, Union Ministry of Mines
Secretary,
Union Ministry of Mines
Government of India
New Delhi
Subject-Comment on the proposal to lift technical ban on chrysotile mining & the draft guidelines
Madam,
This with reference to the meeting held in the Sashtri Bhavan on the possibility of lifting the current technical ban on mining chrysotile asbestos and the proposed guidelines prepared by Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), Union Ministry of Mines on 28/4/2010. May I submit that it appeared that the meeting was convened at the behest of the “mine owners of Chrysotile Asbestos Mines” from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand.
I would like to be very specific and will make my submission based on identifiable references.
In the first of this submission I will comments on the DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING and in the second part I will deal with the proposal to lift the ban on renewal of leases for Chrysotile Asbestos Mines (the arguments hold true for amphibole variety as well)
I. COMMENTS ON DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING
I submit that IBM has shown complete disregard towards the directions and observations of the Supreme Court of India and occupational and environment rights organisations and trade unions in drafting the guidelines. The Court has held in the Consumer Education and Research Centre and Others versus Union of India decided on 27.1.1995 and reported in 1995 (3) SCC 42.. saying, “The development of the carcinogenic risk due to asbestos or any other carcinogenic agent, does not require continuous exposure. The cancer risk does not cease when the exposure to the carcinogenic agent ceases, but rather the individual carries the increased risk for the remaining years of life. The exposure to asbestos and the resultant long tragic chain of adverse medical, legal and societal consequences, reminds the legal and social responsibility of the employer or producer not to endanger the workmen or the community or the society. He or it is not absolved of the inherent responsibility to the exposed workmen or the society at large. They have the responsibility-legal, moral and social to provide protective measures to the workmen and to the public or all those who are exposed to the harmful consequences of their products. Mere adoption of regulations for the enforcement has no real meaning and efficiency without professional, industrial and governmental resources and legal and moral determination to implement such regulations.”
Notably, BIS Standard mentioned in the proposed DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING in this regard is mere paper work with no teeth to act. In any case the global experience shows that "safe" and "controlled" mining, manufacture and use of asbestos and its products is not possible.
There is reference in the proposed guidelines as to how “No person shall be allowed to enter or remain in any work place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time, exceeding the TLV (threshold limit value) of 1 fibre per cc, perceptible through standard monitoring procedures” and “No person shall enter or remain in any place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time exceeding the limit of 1 fibre per cc in the working atmosphere, as observed in standard monitoring, unless such person is wearing approved type respiratory equipment to prevent the inhalation of such dust.” The fact is that WHO’s conclusions and recommendations for protection of human health in Environmental Health Criteria 203 for Chrysotile Asbestos concludes, “No threshold has been identified for carcinogenic risks”.
As to the BIS Standard, it should be noted that 1 f/cc is not a visibly dusty environment, and exposures in this range can only be detected and determined with air monitoring and microscopic analysis. I doubt that there is a record of such monitoring having ever been done.
In such grave circumstances, it is blind lust for profit at any human cost alone that makes people propose standards when there is no level at which it is deemed safe.
At the meeting, I had drawn your attention towards the resolution of International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted by the 95th Session of the International Labour Conference, in June 2006, which stated that “all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme)”.
The resolution noted that “an estimated 100,000 workers die every year from diseases caused by exposure to asbestos and resolved that “the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths”. This shows that the proposed guidelines by the chrysotile mining ministry is blind to the global trend, domestic occupational health conditions and the preventable deaths that occurs due to asbestos mining and its subsequent uses.
Notwithstanding the fact that the current legal position with regard to asbestos is that there is ban on the import/export of waste asbestos (dust & fibers) under the Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, the proposed guidelines misleadingly says, “Asbestos containing residue is covered under the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989. Accordingly, hazardous waste may be transported, treated and disposed of as per Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989”.
II COMMENTS ON THE PROPOSAL TO LIFT TECHNICAL BAN ON CHRYSOTILE MINES
I agree with you when you said that "Asbestos should be banned completely." I submit that so far only half step has been taken in India by banning export-import of asbestos wastes, by banning renewal of mining leases for asbestos and by banning use of schools in the schools of Kerela. The matter with regard to complete ban and decontamination of existing asbestos sites is pending before the Supreme Court of India and National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Public interest creates a compelling logic for your ministry to ensure that the (illegal) mining of asbestos that has taken place has gone on under deplorable conditions is stopped as well and a a total ban be enforced. There is no basis for thinking that legalizing this will improve the state of affairs for the asbestos mine workers. It has not happened anywhere in the world.
I strongly disagree with the alarming and indefensible logic that unless complete ban on asbestos is announced and enforced, asbestos mining in our country can be permitted.
Renowned experts of environmental and occupational exposures who were in New Delhi at a conference in Maulana Azad Medical College, repeatedly urged government of India to harbour no illusions about the “controlled use” of asbestos because there is no realistic alternative to a ban. Moreover, even the best workplace controls cannot prevent occupational and environmental exposures to products in use or to
waste. The trend of alarming rise in the consumption of asbestos in India in hospitals, schools, homes and commercial buildings now resemble those that existed in the industrialized countries before the dangers of asbestos were widely recognized.
The Mines Ministry has consistently informed the parliament that "In view of the hazardous effect of asbestos mining on health, the Government has decided not to grant any new lease for mining of asbestos and minerals found along with asbestos. It does not renew the existing mining leases of asbestos. In view of the deleterious effect of asbestos mining on the health of the workers, the government have ordered the State governments in 1986 not to grant any new mining lease for asbestos (including chrysotile variety) in the country. In June 1993, government stopped the renewal of existing mining leases of asbestos in the country." The ministry has rightly recognised the poisonous nature of asbestos fibers. Is it reasonable and convincing to now argue that the ministry's wisdom about the "deleterious effect of asbestos mining on the health of the workers" all along was wrong just because mine owners would like the ministry to say so.
In view of the above and the growing global awareness about incurable diseases, may I request you to please initiate steps to stop the "Asbestos (that) is being mined in the areas already held under mining lease."
I am aware that at the behest of the mine owners, Ministry of Mines approved a S&T Project titled 'Study of Pollution Level in Asbestos Mines and processing plants in Rajasthan' in 1998. This study was done by Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM) under pressure from mine owners. This study is ridden with conflict of interest and not surprisingly it chooses to ignore the medical and scientific evidence of the UN bodies. Followng a reply by Shri B.K. Handique, the Union Minister of Mines in the parliament on the matter of asbestos mining, I had written to him informing him about the disastrous consequences of lifting the van on renewal of leases. I await a pro-worker and pr-environment reply from him.
In the last one year, three former asbestos mine workers Jhalama Mana, Padma and Lal Singh from the Netaji Ka Bara and Upreta villages in the Jhadole district of Udaipur have died of the disease. The trio were part of 124 others who were checked by the National Institute of Occupation Health. However, the reports of the tests are still awaited. These are just samples from the workers who were working in asbestosis mines in this region. We are sure that there will be many more in reality. Victims of asbestos diseases from Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan suffer horrendous working conditions. The mine owners conceal hazards of working with asbestos, there is delayed diagnosis, misdiagnosis and absence of legal remedy for their incurable diseases.
Public interest creates a compelling logic for your ministry to ensure that the (illegal) mining of asbestos that has taken place has gone on under deplorable conditions is stopped as well and a a total ban be enforced. There is no basis for thinking that legalizing this will improve the state of affairs for the asbestos mine workers. It has not happened anywhere in the world.
I strongly disagree with the alarming and indefensible logic that unless complete ban on asbestos is announced and enforced, asbestos mining in our country can be permitted.
Conclusion
As early as 1898, British government factory inspectors recognized adverse health effects associated with exposure to asbestos fibres. By the 1930s, the scientific evidence of the association between asbestos exposure and non-malignant respiratory disease was well established. (Reference: Barry Castleman, Asbestos: Medical and Legal Aspects. 5th ed. New York, NY: Aspen; 2005.) With the publication of Irving Selikoff’s study of insulation workers in 1964, the evidence of carcinogenicity was incontrovertible. (Reference: Selikoff IJ, Churg J, Hammond EC. Asbestos exposure and neoplasia. JAMA. 1964;188:22–26)
The scientific consensus today is that all types of asbestos fibres, including chrysotile, cause asbestosis, lung cancer, and other cancers most specifically mesothelioma.
At the International Conference entitled "Preventing Emerging Occupational and Environmental Risks in South Asia and Beyond" was organized by Centre for Occupational & Environmental Health (New Delhi), Collegium Ramazzini (Italy), and Drexel University, School of Public Health, Philadelphia, supported by Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India, and WHO, SEARO at capital’s Maulana Azad Medical College, Katja Radon from Germany informed that the social system in Germany are geared to provide pension to asbestos victims and their families besides compensation and the public health system provides universal coverage. The experts noted that the grave health hazards of asbestos are entirely preventable. The health risks of asbestos exposure are unacceptable. Indian health experts and officials admitted the almost complete absence of occupational and environmental health infrastructure and the cancer registry of the country of does not record occupational cancers.
Besides Russia's Ural Asbestos Mining & Ore Dressing Company, the world's largest manufacturer which is the largest supplier of chrysotile asbestos to India, Canada is the second largest supplier to India although over the past two decades, Canada has spent millions stripping asbestos from the walls and ceilings of schools, the Parliament Buildings, and hospitals because of the national outcry against asbestos making the government to stamp out asbestos use at home. But it is promoting its use in India.
To date, some 50 countries have banned asbestos. Asbestos is recognized as a carcinogen and is banned in all 27 European Union member countries besides Australia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Chile, and Japan. Unmindful of this between 1999 and 2001, Canada’s government spent about $575,000 appealing France’s 1997 asbestos ban, only to have the World Trade Organization uphold it. Undeterred, in 2004 Canada successfully spearheaded a coalition of naysayers—Indonesia, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Russia, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe—to block the addition of asbestos to the Rotterdam Convention, a chemical watchdog list.
Most recently, in late March 2010, Canadian Public Health Association called for a ban on the mining, transformation and export of Chrysotile Asbestos and recommended that Government of Canada to "Introduce legislation to ban the mining, use, and export of asbestos, Cease funding the Chrysotile Institute, Establish a national surveillance system and registry for asbestos-related diseases workers exposed to the various forms of asbestos with data storage for at least 40 years, including information on the diseases and exposure to the fibre from chrysotile asbestos, Provide just and adequate transition assistance income support and training for workers who would lose their jobs and financial assistance to communities that will impacted as a result of the closure of the asbestos mines and production industry and Ensure complete removal and replacement of asbestos-containing vermiculite insulation in housing on reserves.
Keeping the above facts in mind, I earnestly request you to support and recommend the proposal for a total ban on the mining, trade, manufacturing and use of asbestos and asbestos products of all forms.
I wish to thank Mr Anil Subramaniam for promptly sharing the draft guidelines. I would be glad to share more information and details with regard to asbestos.
Thanking you
Warm Regards
Gopal Krishna
Convener,
Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)
ToxicsWatch Alliance
Mb: 9818089660
\Website: www.toxicswatch.com
Blog: banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
Cc/ Mr Anil Subramaniam, Under Secretary, Union Ministry of Mines
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Exposing Workers to Asbestos Fibers is Human Rights Violation
Press Release
Ban asbestos completely else lift ban on its mining, says Ministry of Mines
Civil Society demands ban on mining, manufacturing and use of asbestos
New Delhi 28/4/2010: Union Ministry of Mines held a meeting today in the Shashtri Bhavan on the possibility of lifting the current technical ban on mining chrysotile asbestos, amidst Kerela Human Rights Commission’s order banning use of asbestos in schools and a pending case in the National Human Rights Commission in the same matter.
Occupational and environmental groups present at the meeting called for complete ban on asbestos of all kinds because asbestos fibers cause incurable diseases like cancer and sought Mines Ministry’s support in getting a ban imposed on import chrysotile asbestos. The draft guidelines prepared by Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), Union Ministry of Mines on possibility of safe mining of chrysotile asbestos drew severe criticism. Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), an alliance of public health, occupational health, human rights and environment researchers and activists argued, “it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that no safe and controlled mining, production and use of asbestos and its products possible.”
Ms Shanta Sheela Nair, Secretary, Union Ministry of Mines supported BANI’s position but argued, “Asbestos should be banned completely if not then why mining of asbestos within India should be not be allowed as well.”
Under manifest pressure from the “mine owners of Chrysotile Asbestos Mines” from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand, the Ministry seems to be acting like a rubber stamp for the asbestos mining industry’s proposal to lift the ban on mining of asbestos although Supreme Court has held that “The development of the carcinogenic risk due to asbestos or any other carcinogenic agent, does not require continuous exposure. The cancer risk does not cease when the exposure to the carcinogenic agent ceases, but rather the individual carries the increased risk for the remaining years of life. The exposure to asbestos and the resultant long tragic chain of adverse medical, legal and societal consequences, reminds the legal and social responsibility of the employer or producer not to endanger the workmen or the community or the society. He or it is not absolved of the inherent responsibility to the exposed workmen or the society at large. They have the responsibility-legal, moral and social to provide protective measures to the workmen and to the public or all those who are exposed to the harmful consequences of their products. Mere adoption of regulations for the enforcement has no real meaning and efficiency without professional, industrial and governmental resources and legal and moral determination to implement such regulations.” Occupational and environmental groups demand that Ministry of Mines must come out with a status paper on asbestos victims in India’s asbestos mines and the action it has taken to provide compensation and medical remedy to them.
Notably, BIS Standard mentioned in the proposed guidelines in this regard is mere paper work with no teeth to act. There is reference to how “No person shall be allowed to enter or remain in any work place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time, exceeding the TLV (threshold limit value) of 1 fibre per cc, perceptible through standard monitoring procedures” and “No person shall enter or remain in any place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time exceeding the limit of 1 fibre per cc in the working atmosphere, as observed in standard monitoring, unless such person is wearing approved type respiratory equipment to prevent the inhalation of such dust.” The fact is that WHO’s conclusions and recommendations for protection of human health in Environmental Health Criteria 203 for Chrysotile Asbestos concludes, “No threshold has been identified for carcinogenic risks”. Also it says, “The impact of chrysotile/serpentine presence and degradation on the environment and lower life forms is difficult to gauge. Observed perturbations are many but their long-term impact is virtually unknown.” In such grave circumstances, it is blind lust for profit at cost alone that makes people propose standards when there is no level at which it is deemed safe.
BANI drew the attention of the Ministry towards the resolution of International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted by the 95th Session of the International Labour Conference, in June 2006, which stated that “all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme)”. The resolution noted that “an estimated 100,000 workers die every year from diseases caused by exposure to asbestos and resolved that “the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths”. This shows that the proposed guidelines by the chrysotile mining ministry is blind to the global trend, domestic occupational health conditions and the preventable deaths that occurs due to asbestos mining and its subsequent uses.
Notwithstanding the fact that the current legal position with regard to asbestos is that there is ban on the import/export of waste asbestos (dust & fibers) under the Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, the proposed guidelines misleadingly says, “Asbestos containing residue is covered under the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989. Accordingly, hazardous waste may be transported, treated and disposed of as per Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989”. The meeting was attended by representatives of Ministry of Labour and Environment besides representatives from Central Pollution Control Board, National Institute of Occupational Health, Mining and Geology Department, Rajasthan, Mining and Geology Department, Andhra Pradesh, Mining and Geology Department, Jharkhand, Directorate General of Mines Safety, National Institute of Miners’ Health, Campaign for Prevention of Silicosis & PRASAR.
For Details: Gopal Krishna, convener, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)
Mb: 9818089660, E-mail:krishna2777@gmail.com, Web: www.toxicswatch.com
Blog: banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING
Notwithstanding any Rule contained under Mineral Conservation & Development Rules, 1988, the following guidelines are issued to the mine owners of Chrysotile Asbestos Mines, for pollution control and scientific development of these mines:
Every mine owner, who undertakes the Chrysotile Asbestos mining shall take adequate steps during mining, material handling & transport and processing of asbestos ore so as to eliminate or minimize the asbestos dust concentration in the working environment.
Procedure for sampling should be adopted as per BIS Standard 11450. The air sampling may be done with Sampler Model XX5700000 or equivalent with ester cellulose filter of appropriate (0.8-1.2µm) pore size. Low volume Vaccum / Pressure Pump Model XX5600002 with filter holder MAWP 025 AC (Millipore US Corp. US or equivalent) should be used for drawing the air sample at a uniform rate. For assessment / measurement of asbestos fibres, a Phase Contrast Microscope capable of 400X magnification should be used (Labrox Germeny or equivalent). Once the DGMS approves the necessary equipments for sampling of asbestos dust, the approved equipment must be used.
No person shall be allowed to enter or remain in any work place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time, exceeding the TLV (threshold limit value) of 1 fibre per cc, perceptible through standard monitoring procedures.
No person shall enter or remain in any place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time exceeding the limit of 1 fibre per cc in the working atmosphere, as observed in standard monitoring, unless such person is wearing approved type respiratory equipment to prevent the inhalation of such dust.
For the above purpose air quality monitoring has to be done for every quarter at all the mine working faces, transport road ways, milling plants and the tailing and waste dumps, sampling of which to be done through an approved apparatus and analyzed as per standard methods. The quarterly reports on such monitoring shall be submitted within a fortnight of the previous quarter to the respective Regional Controller of Mines and Controller of Mines (Zonal office of Indian Bureau of Mines).
Dust generated by drilling operations shall be controlled by either wet drilling or by employing approved extraction equipment mounted on the drill.
Dust emission from blasting shall be minimized by wetting of the face with water immediately before the blast, and multiple small blasts rather than one large blast, should be practiced.
To reduce throw of the dust, control blasting techniques with proper spacing burden and stemming along with the delay elements and with deck loading or Air Decking, wherever possible, shall be adopted.
In Underground mines, to reduce damage to fiber during the drilling & blasting operation and thus releasing as airborne dust, where ever possible, the blasting face should be provided with an initial free face or pre-splitting with dummy holes, within the non-asbestos mineralized zone. After this free face is developed, blasting within the asbestos mineralized zone shall be carried out, as far as possible, with low-density explosives.
All roadways shall be regularly watered and wetted to reduce the creation of air borne asbestos dust.
The transport trucks used for transport of asbestos ore or its tailings shall never be overloaded and should be properly wetted and completely covered with suitable means.
For the underground mines, a well designed ventilation system shall be provided and operated throughout the working of the mine and also during the blasting time as per standard prescribed in MMR, 1962. Persons should not be allowed to be inside the mine while there is a stoppage of ventilation system. An uninterrupted power supply should be provided to the ventilation fan.
The exhaust air coming out from the underground workings, through the Evasee fitted on the surface, should be allowed to pass through wet scrubbers, before the air is released to the outside atmosphere.
The effluent water released from the mine as well as from the processing plants should be properly treated to remove the sediments before their final discharge.
The Asbestos milling operations should be mechanized, using mechanized transport equipment like elevators, screw conveyors, belt conveyors etc and for crushing and liberation of asbestos fibres using mechanical equipments like Crushers, Fibrizers, Disintegrators, Pulverizes, Edge-runners etc. and for separation of fibre using mechanized equipment like Vibro-screens, Gyro-centric screen, Trammels Cyclones etc.
Material transfer from one operation to the other including Bagging and other operations, are to be pneumatically conveyed through ducts. The transfer points shall be completely enclosed and connected to dust extraction system which shall be pneumatically conveyed and discharged in water precipitator tanks.
All the ore processing operations should be in closed circuit, with proper enclosures like exhaust hoods, so as not to allow the dust generated to escape in to the outside atmosphere. These enclosures shall be cleaned periodically with water and compressed air emulsions and such discharge water shall be disposed off properly.
Provisions shall be made at all dust generating points of the mill to collect the dust laden air, which shall be filtered through high efficiency bag filters.
The external walls of the ore processing plant shall be provided with exhaust fans, for pneumatically conveying the fine dust particles to water precipitators for reduction of dust released from various operations/units.
The tailings discharged from the screen are transported outside the plant by conveyor, preferably by screw conveyors. These tailing dumps as well as the waste dumps shall be suitably rehabilitated with an inert cover over laid by sufficiently thick soil cover, for developing suitable vegetation.
To prevent the spread of air borne fiber dust to outside environment, thick green barriers shall be developed, surrounding the mine area, processing plant and the waste/tailing dumps.
Asbestos containing residue is covered under the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989. Accordingly, hazardous waste may be transported, treated and disposed of as per Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989
Ban asbestos completely else lift ban on its mining, says Ministry of Mines
Civil Society demands ban on mining, manufacturing and use of asbestos
New Delhi 28/4/2010: Union Ministry of Mines held a meeting today in the Shashtri Bhavan on the possibility of lifting the current technical ban on mining chrysotile asbestos, amidst Kerela Human Rights Commission’s order banning use of asbestos in schools and a pending case in the National Human Rights Commission in the same matter.
Occupational and environmental groups present at the meeting called for complete ban on asbestos of all kinds because asbestos fibers cause incurable diseases like cancer and sought Mines Ministry’s support in getting a ban imposed on import chrysotile asbestos. The draft guidelines prepared by Indian Bureau of Mines (IBM), Union Ministry of Mines on possibility of safe mining of chrysotile asbestos drew severe criticism. Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), an alliance of public health, occupational health, human rights and environment researchers and activists argued, “it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that no safe and controlled mining, production and use of asbestos and its products possible.”
Ms Shanta Sheela Nair, Secretary, Union Ministry of Mines supported BANI’s position but argued, “Asbestos should be banned completely if not then why mining of asbestos within India should be not be allowed as well.”
Under manifest pressure from the “mine owners of Chrysotile Asbestos Mines” from Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Jharkhand, the Ministry seems to be acting like a rubber stamp for the asbestos mining industry’s proposal to lift the ban on mining of asbestos although Supreme Court has held that “The development of the carcinogenic risk due to asbestos or any other carcinogenic agent, does not require continuous exposure. The cancer risk does not cease when the exposure to the carcinogenic agent ceases, but rather the individual carries the increased risk for the remaining years of life. The exposure to asbestos and the resultant long tragic chain of adverse medical, legal and societal consequences, reminds the legal and social responsibility of the employer or producer not to endanger the workmen or the community or the society. He or it is not absolved of the inherent responsibility to the exposed workmen or the society at large. They have the responsibility-legal, moral and social to provide protective measures to the workmen and to the public or all those who are exposed to the harmful consequences of their products. Mere adoption of regulations for the enforcement has no real meaning and efficiency without professional, industrial and governmental resources and legal and moral determination to implement such regulations.” Occupational and environmental groups demand that Ministry of Mines must come out with a status paper on asbestos victims in India’s asbestos mines and the action it has taken to provide compensation and medical remedy to them.
Notably, BIS Standard mentioned in the proposed guidelines in this regard is mere paper work with no teeth to act. There is reference to how “No person shall be allowed to enter or remain in any work place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time, exceeding the TLV (threshold limit value) of 1 fibre per cc, perceptible through standard monitoring procedures” and “No person shall enter or remain in any place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time exceeding the limit of 1 fibre per cc in the working atmosphere, as observed in standard monitoring, unless such person is wearing approved type respiratory equipment to prevent the inhalation of such dust.” The fact is that WHO’s conclusions and recommendations for protection of human health in Environmental Health Criteria 203 for Chrysotile Asbestos concludes, “No threshold has been identified for carcinogenic risks”. Also it says, “The impact of chrysotile/serpentine presence and degradation on the environment and lower life forms is difficult to gauge. Observed perturbations are many but their long-term impact is virtually unknown.” In such grave circumstances, it is blind lust for profit at cost alone that makes people propose standards when there is no level at which it is deemed safe.
BANI drew the attention of the Ministry towards the resolution of International Labour Organization (ILO) adopted by the 95th Session of the International Labour Conference, in June 2006, which stated that “all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme)”. The resolution noted that “an estimated 100,000 workers die every year from diseases caused by exposure to asbestos and resolved that “the elimination of the future use of asbestos and the identification and proper management of asbestos currently in place are the most effective means to protect workers from asbestos exposure and to prevent future asbestos-related diseases and deaths”. This shows that the proposed guidelines by the chrysotile mining ministry is blind to the global trend, domestic occupational health conditions and the preventable deaths that occurs due to asbestos mining and its subsequent uses.
Notwithstanding the fact that the current legal position with regard to asbestos is that there is ban on the import/export of waste asbestos (dust & fibers) under the Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008, the proposed guidelines misleadingly says, “Asbestos containing residue is covered under the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989. Accordingly, hazardous waste may be transported, treated and disposed of as per Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989”. The meeting was attended by representatives of Ministry of Labour and Environment besides representatives from Central Pollution Control Board, National Institute of Occupational Health, Mining and Geology Department, Rajasthan, Mining and Geology Department, Andhra Pradesh, Mining and Geology Department, Jharkhand, Directorate General of Mines Safety, National Institute of Miners’ Health, Campaign for Prevention of Silicosis & PRASAR.
For Details: Gopal Krishna, convener, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI)
Mb: 9818089660, E-mail:krishna2777@gmail.com, Web: www.toxicswatch.com
Blog: banasbestosindia.blogspot.com
DRAFT GUIDELINES PREPARED BY IBM FOR CARRYING OUT THE CHRYSOTILE ASBESTOS MINING
Notwithstanding any Rule contained under Mineral Conservation & Development Rules, 1988, the following guidelines are issued to the mine owners of Chrysotile Asbestos Mines, for pollution control and scientific development of these mines:
Every mine owner, who undertakes the Chrysotile Asbestos mining shall take adequate steps during mining, material handling & transport and processing of asbestos ore so as to eliminate or minimize the asbestos dust concentration in the working environment.
Procedure for sampling should be adopted as per BIS Standard 11450. The air sampling may be done with Sampler Model XX5700000 or equivalent with ester cellulose filter of appropriate (0.8-1.2µm) pore size. Low volume Vaccum / Pressure Pump Model XX5600002 with filter holder MAWP 025 AC (Millipore US Corp. US or equivalent) should be used for drawing the air sample at a uniform rate. For assessment / measurement of asbestos fibres, a Phase Contrast Microscope capable of 400X magnification should be used (Labrox Germeny or equivalent). Once the DGMS approves the necessary equipments for sampling of asbestos dust, the approved equipment must be used.
No person shall be allowed to enter or remain in any work place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time, exceeding the TLV (threshold limit value) of 1 fibre per cc, perceptible through standard monitoring procedures.
No person shall enter or remain in any place which contains airborne asbestos dust at any time exceeding the limit of 1 fibre per cc in the working atmosphere, as observed in standard monitoring, unless such person is wearing approved type respiratory equipment to prevent the inhalation of such dust.
For the above purpose air quality monitoring has to be done for every quarter at all the mine working faces, transport road ways, milling plants and the tailing and waste dumps, sampling of which to be done through an approved apparatus and analyzed as per standard methods. The quarterly reports on such monitoring shall be submitted within a fortnight of the previous quarter to the respective Regional Controller of Mines and Controller of Mines (Zonal office of Indian Bureau of Mines).
Dust generated by drilling operations shall be controlled by either wet drilling or by employing approved extraction equipment mounted on the drill.
Dust emission from blasting shall be minimized by wetting of the face with water immediately before the blast, and multiple small blasts rather than one large blast, should be practiced.
To reduce throw of the dust, control blasting techniques with proper spacing burden and stemming along with the delay elements and with deck loading or Air Decking, wherever possible, shall be adopted.
In Underground mines, to reduce damage to fiber during the drilling & blasting operation and thus releasing as airborne dust, where ever possible, the blasting face should be provided with an initial free face or pre-splitting with dummy holes, within the non-asbestos mineralized zone. After this free face is developed, blasting within the asbestos mineralized zone shall be carried out, as far as possible, with low-density explosives.
All roadways shall be regularly watered and wetted to reduce the creation of air borne asbestos dust.
The transport trucks used for transport of asbestos ore or its tailings shall never be overloaded and should be properly wetted and completely covered with suitable means.
For the underground mines, a well designed ventilation system shall be provided and operated throughout the working of the mine and also during the blasting time as per standard prescribed in MMR, 1962. Persons should not be allowed to be inside the mine while there is a stoppage of ventilation system. An uninterrupted power supply should be provided to the ventilation fan.
The exhaust air coming out from the underground workings, through the Evasee fitted on the surface, should be allowed to pass through wet scrubbers, before the air is released to the outside atmosphere.
The effluent water released from the mine as well as from the processing plants should be properly treated to remove the sediments before their final discharge.
The Asbestos milling operations should be mechanized, using mechanized transport equipment like elevators, screw conveyors, belt conveyors etc and for crushing and liberation of asbestos fibres using mechanical equipments like Crushers, Fibrizers, Disintegrators, Pulverizes, Edge-runners etc. and for separation of fibre using mechanized equipment like Vibro-screens, Gyro-centric screen, Trammels Cyclones etc.
Material transfer from one operation to the other including Bagging and other operations, are to be pneumatically conveyed through ducts. The transfer points shall be completely enclosed and connected to dust extraction system which shall be pneumatically conveyed and discharged in water precipitator tanks.
All the ore processing operations should be in closed circuit, with proper enclosures like exhaust hoods, so as not to allow the dust generated to escape in to the outside atmosphere. These enclosures shall be cleaned periodically with water and compressed air emulsions and such discharge water shall be disposed off properly.
Provisions shall be made at all dust generating points of the mill to collect the dust laden air, which shall be filtered through high efficiency bag filters.
The external walls of the ore processing plant shall be provided with exhaust fans, for pneumatically conveying the fine dust particles to water precipitators for reduction of dust released from various operations/units.
The tailings discharged from the screen are transported outside the plant by conveyor, preferably by screw conveyors. These tailing dumps as well as the waste dumps shall be suitably rehabilitated with an inert cover over laid by sufficiently thick soil cover, for developing suitable vegetation.
To prevent the spread of air borne fiber dust to outside environment, thick green barriers shall be developed, surrounding the mine area, processing plant and the waste/tailing dumps.
Asbestos containing residue is covered under the Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989. Accordingly, hazardous waste may be transported, treated and disposed of as per Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989
Monday, April 5, 2010
The Other Deadly White Dust: Russia, China, India and the Campaign to Ban Asbestos
Excerpts Melody Kemp
In parts of Asia, carrying 500 grams of one white powder can draw a death sentence, but importing 1,000 tons of another lethal white dust is both legal and profitable.
Asbestos, a known carcinogen banned in much of the world, is a common and dangerous building block in much of Asia’s development and construction boom. This other white powder causes 100,000 occupational deaths per year, according to Medical News Today.
While images of kids with heroin-loaded needles stuck in their arms spark public outrage, clouds of asbestos fibers in factories and on construction sites often draw official shrugs and denials. Illicit drug use does not rank among the top ten causes of death in young adults, according to a 2009 global study of adolescent health by the Murdoch Children’s Research Center in Melbourne in 2009. But in some Asian nations including China, asbestos is in the top ten causes of occupational disease in laborers, some of whom were exposed as working children. The numbers are generally thought to be higher since much of Asia's data rely on a highly mobile workforce with a high turnover rate.
Like a sleeping bear, asbestos can be deadly when disturbed, and all along the mining, manufacturing, installation, cutting, and deconstruction processes, the mineral is turned into air-borne fibers that lodge in the lungs and cause fatal respiratory diseases, including mesothelioma.
Across much of Asia, white asbestos, also known as chrysotile, is widely used to make asbestos-cement construction material such as roofing tiles, wall panels, and expansion joints, as fire proofing, lagging, foundry gloves and overalls and in brake linings and gaskets in buses and trucks. As modernization and economic development take hold, people trade their insect-filled, flammable grass roofs and woven bamboo walls for asbestos cement materials.
A few years ago at a state-owned roof tile factory in Vietnam, young male workers clad only in shorts carried bags labeled “Asbestos-Kazakhstan.” The air was thick with white dust huffing up like steam from lava. Visiting occupational health and safety experts held their breath as long as they could; some smothered their faces in dust masks. The workers did not have that luxury. Their only protection was handkerchiefs tied bandit-style over their mouths and noses as they climbed the sides of the hoppers.
“I know it’s dangerous,” said the manager spreading his hands and shrugging, “but it’s also cheap, and people only want to buy cheap tiles.”
Drugs or Dust
“It's just a PR campaign when they say that asbestos can kill,” Uralasbest's Viktor Ivanov told AFP in 2007, when he headed the Chrysotile Association, an industry group based in the Russian town of Asbest. The website for Uralasbest, the Ural Asbestos Mining & Ore Dressing Company, calls the company the world's “oldest and largest manufacturer and supplier of chrysotile.” In 2005 the Russian firm produced about a quarter of the world's chrysotile asbestos and exported it to 35 countries (pdf): 53 percent outside the Commonwealth of Independent States (to China, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, etc.), and 13 percent within the CIS nations that had been part of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, etc.). Its website vigorously contests critical claims about the dangers of asbestos and calls for eliminating its use (link).
Uralasbest’s factory
Vietnam cannot agree with Uralasbest’s contentions. A rising tide of workers ill with asbestos lung disease arising from situations like the one described above, has led the government to collaborate with the Australian trade union aid agency APHEDA, to develop a coordinated approach to dealing with asbestos.
Very little asbestos ends up in the West. More than 60 countries have partially or completely banned asbestos, including the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea. The EU nations and others have completely banned both brown amphibole and white chrysotile asbestos, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified all types as a human carcinogen. Although some studies have found that chrysotile's small fiber size makes it less virulent than brown amphibole, the WHO is unequivocal: “no threshold has been established for the carcinogenic risk of chrysotile.”(pdf)
But asbestos merchants, disputing World Health Organization (WHO) data and overwhelming scientific evidence, claim that chrysotile is safe. Uralasbest's website decries “the wave of anti-asbestos psychose [sic] [that] was spread over Western Europe.” “Today’s asbestos industry is totally harmless,” Tatiana Kochetova of the Asbest-based Institute for Asbestos Projects told the Russian Journal. “There hasn’t been one case of asbestos-caused disease here for many years. Locally produced asbestos does not cause any harm.”
Researchers Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale documented rates of malignancies dropping in Asbest only after the introduction of dust control technologies (and the dispersal of ill workers). Those same safety measures that, in any case, mitigate rather than eliminate risk are largely lacking in the countries to which Russian asbestos is exported. (McCulloch J and Tweedale G 2008 Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry and its Fight for Survival. OUP.)
Russia's Exports
Asbest is a classic monogorod, or single-industry town in Bazhenouskoye in north of Kazakhstan, along the eastern slope of the Ural ridge. The open-pit mine covers 90 sq. km. and stretches 11.5 km long, 1.8 km wide and almost 300 meters deep. There, some 10,000 workers turn out more than 500,000 tons of chrysotile asbestos annually.
In 2009, Uralasbest was forecasting production of 450,000 tons, “a significant portion of the world market,” and its FY 2006 revenues were $192 million, according to Rye, Man & Gor Securities (pdf). Russia produced 925,000 tons of asbestos in 2008, according to the US Geological Survey, almost half the estimated world production of about 2 million tons a year, and worth $900 million.
Once state-ownd, Uralasbest is now privatized. More than half of Uralasbest share capital is owned through a Russian regional bank (Urals Bank for Reconstruction and Development). Stroyexport, another Russian company, owns 14 percent, and two South Africa-registered companies -- Petrov & Co and Mavrol Management -- own 21 percent. The top managers control about 30 percent of the company (pdf). In 2007 Uralasbest entered into a joint venture with Swiss Minmet Financing Company to recover magnesium from its asbestos mine tailings. This move was meant as a hedge against the global decline in construction.
Perhaps more threatening to Uralasbest's economic future than recession is the growing awareness that asbestos is toxic, and alternatives are available. In 2000, citing Canada's high level support for its industry as a model, Russian asbestos industry officials sought Vladimir Putin’s assistance in countering "asbestphobia."
Russian corporations also looked to Canada's -- and Kazakh's -- marketing efforts in newly rich Asian nations. That strategy has produced rich results according to the World Asbestos Reports, and the WHO confirms that some countries have reduced restrictions and increased production and use of chrysotile.
China
In the grainy black and white Chinese government film1, a man walked unsteadily toward the cameras, his chest skewed to one side. He looked to be in great pain. An unidentified person in clinical clothing turned the man around indicating a tumour the size of a small backpack pushing it’s way though the skin over the man’s shoulder blades. He died shortly after, and the film unswervingly follows the post mortem, the man only a few minutes ago painfully alive, now dead on the gurney with an open chest. The cause of death the voice over intoned was mesothelioma from inhaling crocidolite fibres. The man was a farmer in Sichuan province. The film shot in 1984 recorded hillsides where friable crocidolite, (commonly known as blue asbestos), had been exposed after erosion and landslips. The huge areas of virgin forests in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces provided timber and land for agricultural use but exposed substantial reserves of crocidolite below. The villagers used it to make bricks and stoves, mixing it with clay. A local tradition had new brides given a basin with asbestos to whitewash the walls of the kitchen for the newlyweds.
The area is dry and windy. The crocidolite, so dense the film’s researchers noted that the soil looked blue, was blown into the faces of farmers and road builders who had mortality rates of thirty plus percent. The narrator added that the asbestos was vital to China’s defence industries. Submarines, tanks, battle ships all used large amounts of asbestos. Doubtless the Department of Defence in China is little different from its cohorts around the world and close mouthed about asbestos mortality and morbidity.
The research reported in the film won several awards for science and technology research in 1990 . And yet in 2010 China remains the world’s second largest producer of asbestos and the world’s largest user (link).
Traded along the Silk Road to China, it was relatively unknown as an industrial product until 60 years ago and the Great Leap Forward, which accelerated China’s industrialization before famine sent the economy into reverse. In 2006 ChinaMining.org reported that “China now has more than 160 asbestos mines and asbestos-manufactured products enterprises, most of which are small. Asbestos mines in western China have been developing rapidly and now become (sic) the main base of asbestos production in China. China's asbestos production is chiefly concentrated in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan. These provinces (regions) contribute about 2/3 of China's total asbestos production.”
In 1995, Chinese dissident Harry Wu surreptitiously visited and photographed China's largest asbestos mine, in a prison camp in mountainous Sichuan province. "I told the prisoners that they have been given the death sentence," Wu told USA Today at the time.
China reportedly has abandoned forced labour asbestos mining, but production is unceasing. In 1997 China's total asbestos production was 437,000 tons, ranking third in the world. Gansu, Xinjiang and Qinghai are amongst the three most important producers of asbestos, yielding 56.45% of China's total. Sichuan Jilin, Guangdong, Qinghai and Shijiazhuang are also notable suppliers. The extent of the current supply of Chinese asbestos is to be seen at Alibaba.com. Over two thousand products are available from 15 major suppliers some of which boast ISO 9000 and 1400 certification (link).
China has open cut and underground asbestos mines. Unlike the infamous coal mines, accidents are less well reported. But it is the daily inhalation of fibres at work and in the surrounding environment that causes the painful life shortening diseases.
One such open cut mine is the Shimiankuang Asbestos Mine found at a giddying 3,200 meters on the border of Qinghai Province and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Western China. (See location)
One visitor wrote, “though the asbestos is certainly deadly for most of the workers, many of whom seem not to be wearing masks of any kind, it may not be dangerous for the visitor to just drive through. However, if the idea concerns you, you may want to avoid this route. Asbestos is ….also the chemical basis of the nephrite jade in the Kunlun Mountains, the source of most of the jade in China for 3,000 years.” (wikimapia.com).
There is no doubt that China is conducting detailed and collaborative research on asbestos diseases. Journals such as Industrial Health (Cai Zhang et al 2001) and the Annals of occupational hygiene (Li et al 2002) are littered with studies. But the pragmatic and developmentalist Chinese government considers worker deaths as secondary to economic and export development and shows no signs of diminishing production. They are, however, reported to be doing intensive investigation on substitutes, and do at least attempt to record morbidity and mortality, something that India is less diligent in doing.
India Imports
In 2008 India – along with Pakistan, Canada and Russia – rejected the banning of chrysotile asbestos mandated under the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent (PIC). PIC lists chemicals that require exchange of information on health hazards prior to trade.
India, which imported 360,000 tons of asbestos in 2006, claimed that evidence of chrysotile's lethality was not conclusive, and that it was awaiting the results of a major health study before joining the convention, according to Madhumitta Dutta of the Corporate Accountability Desk, a member of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI).
However, “India failed to inform the international community ... that the [health] study was funded in part by the asbestos industry,” charged Dutta. “Still worse, the study was kept under wraps, and is not accessible to public health specialists or labor groups.”
Gopal Krishna, a convenor and founder of BANI, condemned his country's rejection of PIC. “There is a political consensus in India to promote asbestos at any human cost,” he wrote in India Together in 2006.
Underlying that consensus are the close links between the asbestos industry and some prominent Indian politicians. “With asbestos firms being owned by politicians or the state itself, the government seems to be following a classic ostrich policy,” Krishna wrote. “The reality is that the country's most powerful parliamentarians bless the asbestos industry.”
They include Buddhadev Bhattacharya, the chief minister of Bengal’s Communist government, who gave Utkal Asbestos Ltd. an Environment Excellence Award which it used in its advertising. Rebranding itself in 2006, the company dropped the word asbestos from its name. Now called UAL Industries Ltd., it is a major producer of fiber cement corrugated sheets and accessories under the brand Konark, and its website boasts that it “has left no stone unturned to achieve its motive of becoming the leading player in Eastern India.”
UAL factory
Visaka Industries’ chairman, G. Vivekanand, is the son of G. Venkataswamy, a member of Parliament, deputy leader of the Indian Congress Parliamentary Party, and a former Union Textile Minister. Vivekanand put out a fact sheet claiming that chrysotile is safe, and blamed Western media coverage of past events for generating unfounded fear.
Indian media reported that Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi encouraged Visaka industries to set up in her constituency Rae Bareli, and saw the plants as a way to boost employment and electability. The plans were fast tracked, breaking records for passage through the Departments of Environment and Forests. Visaka annually produces 600,000 tons of asbestos sheets, mostly used in roofing. One of its main marketing targets is India's rural population, 80 to 85 percent of which now live under thatched roofs, the company website notes.
In October 2009 Visaka Industries announced it is setting up a 100,000-ton capacity asbestos cement sheet plant at Sambalpur in Orissa at an estimated cost of $8.6 million “to meet the rural demand.” It is also ramping up the capacity of its Pune plant from 65,000 to 100,000 tons per annum, according Vivekanand.
In 2007 an Indian news channel showed workers hand-mixing asbestos into rice, while a voice-over intoned that chrysotile is safe enough to use as a husking agent. The rice was later sold as premium basmati.
Dying to Work
“I have seen young men suffering from the cancers caused by this material [asbestos],” says a guard at an asbestos cement sheet factory in Guangdong, China. “The bosses don’t care, and the government intimidates us [who are] working for safety. They say we are sabotaging China’s development. Sometimes I get very frightened and cannot sleep thinking I will be arrested. I may get the disease, as the air is full of dust. I hope that someone would help me if that happened. I can’t quit. Where would I go? I have no skills and jobs are hard to find.”
The participants at the Phom Penh meeting had no suggestions.
This worker's story is echoed throughout Asia. In China alone, the official incidence of industrial lung diseases is around 100,000 per year. Experts familiar with Beijing's official statistics would multiply that figure by three or four to get close to the real toll. The irony perhaps enigma of China is that it has done more research and medical trials than any other country in Asia. It knows more about the effects on it own people than any other using nation. And yet it continues to mine, export and use it domestically.
This article was written for The Asia-Pacific Journal.
Melody Kemp is a freelance writer who worked in labour and development for many years and is a member of the Society for Environmental Journalism (US). She now lives in South-East Asia. Contact musi@magma.ca.
Recommended citation: Melody Kemp, "The Other Deadly White Dust: Russia, China, India and the Campaign to Ban Asbestos," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 13-1-10, March 2, 2010.
Notes
1 A copy of the film was given to the reporter in Hong Kong by a Chinese labour activist.
In parts of Asia, carrying 500 grams of one white powder can draw a death sentence, but importing 1,000 tons of another lethal white dust is both legal and profitable.
Asbestos, a known carcinogen banned in much of the world, is a common and dangerous building block in much of Asia’s development and construction boom. This other white powder causes 100,000 occupational deaths per year, according to Medical News Today.
While images of kids with heroin-loaded needles stuck in their arms spark public outrage, clouds of asbestos fibers in factories and on construction sites often draw official shrugs and denials. Illicit drug use does not rank among the top ten causes of death in young adults, according to a 2009 global study of adolescent health by the Murdoch Children’s Research Center in Melbourne in 2009. But in some Asian nations including China, asbestos is in the top ten causes of occupational disease in laborers, some of whom were exposed as working children. The numbers are generally thought to be higher since much of Asia's data rely on a highly mobile workforce with a high turnover rate.
Like a sleeping bear, asbestos can be deadly when disturbed, and all along the mining, manufacturing, installation, cutting, and deconstruction processes, the mineral is turned into air-borne fibers that lodge in the lungs and cause fatal respiratory diseases, including mesothelioma.
Across much of Asia, white asbestos, also known as chrysotile, is widely used to make asbestos-cement construction material such as roofing tiles, wall panels, and expansion joints, as fire proofing, lagging, foundry gloves and overalls and in brake linings and gaskets in buses and trucks. As modernization and economic development take hold, people trade their insect-filled, flammable grass roofs and woven bamboo walls for asbestos cement materials.
A few years ago at a state-owned roof tile factory in Vietnam, young male workers clad only in shorts carried bags labeled “Asbestos-Kazakhstan.” The air was thick with white dust huffing up like steam from lava. Visiting occupational health and safety experts held their breath as long as they could; some smothered their faces in dust masks. The workers did not have that luxury. Their only protection was handkerchiefs tied bandit-style over their mouths and noses as they climbed the sides of the hoppers.
“I know it’s dangerous,” said the manager spreading his hands and shrugging, “but it’s also cheap, and people only want to buy cheap tiles.”
Drugs or Dust
“It's just a PR campaign when they say that asbestos can kill,” Uralasbest's Viktor Ivanov told AFP in 2007, when he headed the Chrysotile Association, an industry group based in the Russian town of Asbest. The website for Uralasbest, the Ural Asbestos Mining & Ore Dressing Company, calls the company the world's “oldest and largest manufacturer and supplier of chrysotile.” In 2005 the Russian firm produced about a quarter of the world's chrysotile asbestos and exported it to 35 countries (pdf): 53 percent outside the Commonwealth of Independent States (to China, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, etc.), and 13 percent within the CIS nations that had been part of the former Soviet Union (Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, etc.). Its website vigorously contests critical claims about the dangers of asbestos and calls for eliminating its use (link).
Uralasbest’s factory
Vietnam cannot agree with Uralasbest’s contentions. A rising tide of workers ill with asbestos lung disease arising from situations like the one described above, has led the government to collaborate with the Australian trade union aid agency APHEDA, to develop a coordinated approach to dealing with asbestos.
Very little asbestos ends up in the West. More than 60 countries have partially or completely banned asbestos, including the United States, Australia, Japan and South Korea. The EU nations and others have completely banned both brown amphibole and white chrysotile asbestos, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified all types as a human carcinogen. Although some studies have found that chrysotile's small fiber size makes it less virulent than brown amphibole, the WHO is unequivocal: “no threshold has been established for the carcinogenic risk of chrysotile.”(pdf)
But asbestos merchants, disputing World Health Organization (WHO) data and overwhelming scientific evidence, claim that chrysotile is safe. Uralasbest's website decries “the wave of anti-asbestos psychose [sic] [that] was spread over Western Europe.” “Today’s asbestos industry is totally harmless,” Tatiana Kochetova of the Asbest-based Institute for Asbestos Projects told the Russian Journal. “There hasn’t been one case of asbestos-caused disease here for many years. Locally produced asbestos does not cause any harm.”
Researchers Jock McCulloch and Geoffrey Tweedale documented rates of malignancies dropping in Asbest only after the introduction of dust control technologies (and the dispersal of ill workers). Those same safety measures that, in any case, mitigate rather than eliminate risk are largely lacking in the countries to which Russian asbestos is exported. (McCulloch J and Tweedale G 2008 Defending the Indefensible: The Global Asbestos Industry and its Fight for Survival. OUP.)
Russia's Exports
Asbest is a classic monogorod, or single-industry town in Bazhenouskoye in north of Kazakhstan, along the eastern slope of the Ural ridge. The open-pit mine covers 90 sq. km. and stretches 11.5 km long, 1.8 km wide and almost 300 meters deep. There, some 10,000 workers turn out more than 500,000 tons of chrysotile asbestos annually.
In 2009, Uralasbest was forecasting production of 450,000 tons, “a significant portion of the world market,” and its FY 2006 revenues were $192 million, according to Rye, Man & Gor Securities (pdf). Russia produced 925,000 tons of asbestos in 2008, according to the US Geological Survey, almost half the estimated world production of about 2 million tons a year, and worth $900 million.
Once state-ownd, Uralasbest is now privatized. More than half of Uralasbest share capital is owned through a Russian regional bank (Urals Bank for Reconstruction and Development). Stroyexport, another Russian company, owns 14 percent, and two South Africa-registered companies -- Petrov & Co and Mavrol Management -- own 21 percent. The top managers control about 30 percent of the company (pdf). In 2007 Uralasbest entered into a joint venture with Swiss Minmet Financing Company to recover magnesium from its asbestos mine tailings. This move was meant as a hedge against the global decline in construction.
Perhaps more threatening to Uralasbest's economic future than recession is the growing awareness that asbestos is toxic, and alternatives are available. In 2000, citing Canada's high level support for its industry as a model, Russian asbestos industry officials sought Vladimir Putin’s assistance in countering "asbestphobia."
Russian corporations also looked to Canada's -- and Kazakh's -- marketing efforts in newly rich Asian nations. That strategy has produced rich results according to the World Asbestos Reports, and the WHO confirms that some countries have reduced restrictions and increased production and use of chrysotile.
China
In the grainy black and white Chinese government film1, a man walked unsteadily toward the cameras, his chest skewed to one side. He looked to be in great pain. An unidentified person in clinical clothing turned the man around indicating a tumour the size of a small backpack pushing it’s way though the skin over the man’s shoulder blades. He died shortly after, and the film unswervingly follows the post mortem, the man only a few minutes ago painfully alive, now dead on the gurney with an open chest. The cause of death the voice over intoned was mesothelioma from inhaling crocidolite fibres. The man was a farmer in Sichuan province. The film shot in 1984 recorded hillsides where friable crocidolite, (commonly known as blue asbestos), had been exposed after erosion and landslips. The huge areas of virgin forests in Sichuan and Yunnan provinces provided timber and land for agricultural use but exposed substantial reserves of crocidolite below. The villagers used it to make bricks and stoves, mixing it with clay. A local tradition had new brides given a basin with asbestos to whitewash the walls of the kitchen for the newlyweds.
The area is dry and windy. The crocidolite, so dense the film’s researchers noted that the soil looked blue, was blown into the faces of farmers and road builders who had mortality rates of thirty plus percent. The narrator added that the asbestos was vital to China’s defence industries. Submarines, tanks, battle ships all used large amounts of asbestos. Doubtless the Department of Defence in China is little different from its cohorts around the world and close mouthed about asbestos mortality and morbidity.
The research reported in the film won several awards for science and technology research in 1990 . And yet in 2010 China remains the world’s second largest producer of asbestos and the world’s largest user (link).
Traded along the Silk Road to China, it was relatively unknown as an industrial product until 60 years ago and the Great Leap Forward, which accelerated China’s industrialization before famine sent the economy into reverse. In 2006 ChinaMining.org reported that “China now has more than 160 asbestos mines and asbestos-manufactured products enterprises, most of which are small. Asbestos mines in western China have been developing rapidly and now become (sic) the main base of asbestos production in China. China's asbestos production is chiefly concentrated in Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu and Sichuan. These provinces (regions) contribute about 2/3 of China's total asbestos production.”
In 1995, Chinese dissident Harry Wu surreptitiously visited and photographed China's largest asbestos mine, in a prison camp in mountainous Sichuan province. "I told the prisoners that they have been given the death sentence," Wu told USA Today at the time.
China reportedly has abandoned forced labour asbestos mining, but production is unceasing. In 1997 China's total asbestos production was 437,000 tons, ranking third in the world. Gansu, Xinjiang and Qinghai are amongst the three most important producers of asbestos, yielding 56.45% of China's total. Sichuan Jilin, Guangdong, Qinghai and Shijiazhuang are also notable suppliers. The extent of the current supply of Chinese asbestos is to be seen at Alibaba.com. Over two thousand products are available from 15 major suppliers some of which boast ISO 9000 and 1400 certification (link).
China has open cut and underground asbestos mines. Unlike the infamous coal mines, accidents are less well reported. But it is the daily inhalation of fibres at work and in the surrounding environment that causes the painful life shortening diseases.
One such open cut mine is the Shimiankuang Asbestos Mine found at a giddying 3,200 meters on the border of Qinghai Province and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Western China. (See location)
One visitor wrote, “though the asbestos is certainly deadly for most of the workers, many of whom seem not to be wearing masks of any kind, it may not be dangerous for the visitor to just drive through. However, if the idea concerns you, you may want to avoid this route. Asbestos is ….also the chemical basis of the nephrite jade in the Kunlun Mountains, the source of most of the jade in China for 3,000 years.” (wikimapia.com).
There is no doubt that China is conducting detailed and collaborative research on asbestos diseases. Journals such as Industrial Health (Cai Zhang et al 2001) and the Annals of occupational hygiene (Li et al 2002) are littered with studies. But the pragmatic and developmentalist Chinese government considers worker deaths as secondary to economic and export development and shows no signs of diminishing production. They are, however, reported to be doing intensive investigation on substitutes, and do at least attempt to record morbidity and mortality, something that India is less diligent in doing.
India Imports
In 2008 India – along with Pakistan, Canada and Russia – rejected the banning of chrysotile asbestos mandated under the Rotterdam Convention on Prior Informed Consent (PIC). PIC lists chemicals that require exchange of information on health hazards prior to trade.
India, which imported 360,000 tons of asbestos in 2006, claimed that evidence of chrysotile's lethality was not conclusive, and that it was awaiting the results of a major health study before joining the convention, according to Madhumitta Dutta of the Corporate Accountability Desk, a member of Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI).
However, “India failed to inform the international community ... that the [health] study was funded in part by the asbestos industry,” charged Dutta. “Still worse, the study was kept under wraps, and is not accessible to public health specialists or labor groups.”
Gopal Krishna, a convenor and founder of BANI, condemned his country's rejection of PIC. “There is a political consensus in India to promote asbestos at any human cost,” he wrote in India Together in 2006.
Underlying that consensus are the close links between the asbestos industry and some prominent Indian politicians. “With asbestos firms being owned by politicians or the state itself, the government seems to be following a classic ostrich policy,” Krishna wrote. “The reality is that the country's most powerful parliamentarians bless the asbestos industry.”
They include Buddhadev Bhattacharya, the chief minister of Bengal’s Communist government, who gave Utkal Asbestos Ltd. an Environment Excellence Award which it used in its advertising. Rebranding itself in 2006, the company dropped the word asbestos from its name. Now called UAL Industries Ltd., it is a major producer of fiber cement corrugated sheets and accessories under the brand Konark, and its website boasts that it “has left no stone unturned to achieve its motive of becoming the leading player in Eastern India.”
UAL factory
Visaka Industries’ chairman, G. Vivekanand, is the son of G. Venkataswamy, a member of Parliament, deputy leader of the Indian Congress Parliamentary Party, and a former Union Textile Minister. Vivekanand put out a fact sheet claiming that chrysotile is safe, and blamed Western media coverage of past events for generating unfounded fear.
Indian media reported that Congress Party chief Sonia Gandhi encouraged Visaka industries to set up in her constituency Rae Bareli, and saw the plants as a way to boost employment and electability. The plans were fast tracked, breaking records for passage through the Departments of Environment and Forests. Visaka annually produces 600,000 tons of asbestos sheets, mostly used in roofing. One of its main marketing targets is India's rural population, 80 to 85 percent of which now live under thatched roofs, the company website notes.
In October 2009 Visaka Industries announced it is setting up a 100,000-ton capacity asbestos cement sheet plant at Sambalpur in Orissa at an estimated cost of $8.6 million “to meet the rural demand.” It is also ramping up the capacity of its Pune plant from 65,000 to 100,000 tons per annum, according Vivekanand.
In 2007 an Indian news channel showed workers hand-mixing asbestos into rice, while a voice-over intoned that chrysotile is safe enough to use as a husking agent. The rice was later sold as premium basmati.
Dying to Work
“I have seen young men suffering from the cancers caused by this material [asbestos],” says a guard at an asbestos cement sheet factory in Guangdong, China. “The bosses don’t care, and the government intimidates us [who are] working for safety. They say we are sabotaging China’s development. Sometimes I get very frightened and cannot sleep thinking I will be arrested. I may get the disease, as the air is full of dust. I hope that someone would help me if that happened. I can’t quit. Where would I go? I have no skills and jobs are hard to find.”
The participants at the Phom Penh meeting had no suggestions.
This worker's story is echoed throughout Asia. In China alone, the official incidence of industrial lung diseases is around 100,000 per year. Experts familiar with Beijing's official statistics would multiply that figure by three or four to get close to the real toll. The irony perhaps enigma of China is that it has done more research and medical trials than any other country in Asia. It knows more about the effects on it own people than any other using nation. And yet it continues to mine, export and use it domestically.
This article was written for The Asia-Pacific Journal.
Melody Kemp is a freelance writer who worked in labour and development for many years and is a member of the Society for Environmental Journalism (US). She now lives in South-East Asia. Contact musi@magma.ca.
Recommended citation: Melody Kemp, "The Other Deadly White Dust: Russia, China, India and the Campaign to Ban Asbestos," The Asia-Pacific Journal, 13-1-10, March 2, 2010.
Notes
1 A copy of the film was given to the reporter in Hong Kong by a Chinese labour activist.
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