by Alicia Stender and Kielly Dunn
On February 2, 1997, Christopher Martin Colorant died at home in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, India. He was 33 years old. According to his mother, during the 11 years he worked at the Hindustan Lever Limited Thermometer Factory (a subsidiary of Unilever), he suffered from a variety of health ailments, including blurred vision, nausea, edema, kidney and lung damage, severe pain and persistent cramping. He left behind two young children.
Colorant is not the only former worker at the HLL factory to become ill with symptoms, such as these, that could be attributed to mercury poisoning. Ten men under the age of 40, reported to have been in good health before they began working at the factory, have died. According to workers, supervisors at HLL never discussed the hazards of mercury, and worker protection was lax. The factory also has been found to have improperly disposed of waste containing large amounts of mercury – even consultants hired by the company estimated that 300 kg of mercury was discarded in the forests surrounding the factory site. Unilever closed the factory in 2001 after safety procedures for handling and recycling contaminated glassware were breached, and the company promised to retrieve toxic waste that had been sold in glass waste to local scrap dealers. However, workers and their families have been unable to persuade Unilever that the health problems of former factory workers are the result of mercury poisoning.
In the summer of 2002, community members approached the [begin link http://www.iptindia.org]Indian People’s Tribunal on Environmental and Human Rights (IPT)[end link]. IPT is a project of the Socio Legal Information Centre. Based in Mumbai, IPT was founded in 1993 to investigate and bring public attention to violations of environmental and human rights. After conducting its investigations, the tribunal publishes reports detailing its findings. IPT hosts legal scholars and jurists, and it is independent of the government and the judiciary.
Community members hoped that an inquiry by IPT would help them force the company to completely clean up the site and pay former workers compensation for their health problems. The Socio Legal Information Centre used a $1,500 grant from Global Greengrants Fund to publish IPT reports on investigations of two sites that had been identified as highly threatened by industrial pollution, one of which was the thermometer factory. These projects have helped IPT expand its focus, as it previously had conducted only two other environmental inquiries.
As part of its investigation IPT gathered testimony from 24 people on illnesses suffered by former factory workers, and two doctors from Community Health Cell of Bangladore examined 30 workers. The doctors found that a number of the workers did have problems attributable to mercury poisoning, such as gum and teeth problems, infertility, and psychiatric symptoms.
The tribunal also took an in-depth look at the study of workers’ health done by the company itself. It found the study to have been insufficient and criticized its inadequate use of health data from the company records, lack of a scientific sample of workers, and lack of a clearly stated purpose.
Greenpeace contributed a statement on the handling of mercury in the factory, the disposal of mercury-laden waste, and the safety measures practiced in the facility. According to the report, HLL followed safety guidelines sporadically, did not systematically measure air pollution levels, and performed only urine and blood tests on workers. Urine and blood tests are believed to be insufficient, as neither can detect the low levels of mercury that accumulate from long-term, low-level exposure and can damage the kidneys, the central nervous system and the immune system.
The report was published in both English and Tamil, and copies were sent to concerned parties in the government and private sector. The report was very successful in raising media attention – in the weeks following its release, several newspapers carried stories about HLL, and two leading magazines published major stories. Many believe that the report and the attention it generated encouraged Unilever to take more immediate action to clean up the site. The company has not yet addressed concerns that mercury from the factory is responsible for illnesses and deaths of former workers nor responded to demands that it compensate former workers for pain and suffering, but IPT’s investigation and report may help keep pressure on the company.