Heavy Metal

Title: Heavy Metal – How A Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal

Author: Ameer Shahul

Publisher: MacMillan, 2023 (First)

ISBN: 9789390742660

Pages: 396

 

Those who have visited the small hill station of Kodaikanal would not fail to appreciate its pristine beauty and the calm, misty mornings. This jewel of a town is the favourite destination of thousands of tourists and a number of older people wishing to stay there for an extended period of time to rest or recuperate. The peace of this idyllic spot was shattered in 2001 when it was revealed that a clinical thermometer manufacturing facility owned by the multinational company Unilever was dumping glass waste containing traces of the deadly metal mercury in the ground without any treatment and disposing it to scrap dealers who reused it for various purposes, putting the town’s ecology and the health of its inhabitants in jeopardy. A loud public outcry ensued and the factory was immediately closed down. Demands to remedy the occurred damage through painstaking soil correction procedures and provide compensation to the workers and society in the vicinity of the factory dented the public image of Unilever which was riding on the marketing pitch of an environmentally responsible company. Militant environmental groups such as Greenpeace and local activists fought against the company both in India and abroad, till finally Unilever caved in and accepted every demand. This book is written by one such activist who was in the forefront of the agitation against the company. Ameer Shahul is a journalist-cum-activist focusing on green policies and intellectual property rights.

 

One important characteristic of the factory was that it was not a brand new one. The cosmetics major Chesebrough–Pond’s had set up a thermometer plant in the US and was operating it profitably till the late 1970s. Following the tightening of environmental regulations in the US and the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the corporation found it unable to provide for the increased surveillance and control measures newly incorporated in the rule books. It was also exactly the time India was reeling with the failure of its much vaunted socialist model of industrial development and literally scouring the West with the begging bowl of foreign investment. Tamil Nadu provided a very suitable land at Kodaikanal for the thermometer factory. This was very essential as mercury can vapourize at typical room temperatures in India and it was desirable to find a location which is cooler than the plains. The factory was set up and became operational in 1983 directly employing about 200 people. There were ample safety measures in place at first, but they were slowly relaxed one after the other in a matter of months. Even inexpensive protocols like mandatory bath for workers handling mercury before they went home were also abandoned. As part of corporate rearrangement, Unilever took over the plant in 1988.

 

Shahul claims that a veteran environmental activist named Navroz Mody, who had taken up residence at Kodaikanal, accidentally stumbled upon glass waste at a scrap dealer’s shop in 2001. Mody observed traces of a black liquid in them which he deduced to be mercury. Environmental groups stung into action and about 5.3 tons of glass waste was found in the custody of the trader. A public protest soon took place that accused the company of irresponsibly disposing mercury-laden waste to traders and dumping it in remote areas. The very next day, Unilever suspended operations at the factory, admitting the existence of ‘a remote possibility that contaminated waste may have left the factory due to a small human error’. Statutory agencies ordered closure of the works and the company had no stomach to fight as the factory was not much profitable any way. Streamlining business and setting focus only on the FMCG sector, Unilever withdrew from ancillary sectors like agricultural feeds, specialty chemicals, nickel catalyst and also from manufacturing thermometers in the mid-2010s. The factory never reopened.

 

Every line in this book is specially tuned for propaganda against Unilever and exaggerating the implications of mercury poisoning. Several anecdotes are given in which many good knights in shining armour ‘accidentally’ arrive on the scene and get shocked at the contamination caused by mercury. One such story is the ‘Pathar ke Phool’ ingredient in biryani which was studied by two scientists at the National Centre for Compositional Characterization of Materials (NCCCM) at Hyderabad. Out of ‘curiosity’, they subjected the material to tests on the ultra-sophisticated cold-vapour atomic absorption spectrometer and got alarmed at the high concentration of mercury in it. Pathar ke phool is lichen which absorbs metals and minerals from its surroundings and deposits them in its cells. It is a bio-monitor for measuring air quality. They then traced the origin of the material to Kodaikanal and visited the site to access other contaminated material. It is alleged that air samples taken from the factory premises showed mercury levels 2640 times higher than normal.

 

The author observes that effectiveness of campaigns depends on the amount of media coverage and the public interest it generates. True to this dictum, the environmentalists tried every trick up their sleeve. Hindustan Unilever’s annual general body meetings were routinely interrupted by activists posing questions and sloganeering. The fight extended to all fronts – statutory agencies, social pressure, judicial, legal and even political as the last resort. Jairam Ramesh, who was a union minister at that time and was called ‘India’s Big Green Wrecking Machine’ by the Wall Street Journal for his excessive activism, many a time intervened at the crucial moment in favour of the activists turning government machinery against the company. They set up an Indian People’s Tribunal (IPT) as a pseudo-judicial forum in 1993 to address the issues of environment and human rights. Retired judges took part in it and they ‘summoned’ company executives to depose before them which they refused to do. However, the Pollution Control Board of Tamil Nadu actually attended this stage-managed program. Activists also forced the company to send 290 tons of mercury waste back to the US in 2003 for recycling. Finally, Unilever agreed to pay compensation to workers even though the ill effects of mercury poisoning could not be convincingly proved. However, the constant fight of company officials with environmentalists took their toll in other ways as well. Manvinder Singh Bagga, the CEO of Hindustan Unilever in 2000, suffered the double fiasco of Kodaikanal and the failure to turn around another subsidiary. This cost him the top job of Unilever at the international level in 2010.

 

Studies suggest that mercury, even in low concentrations, can cause a spree of serious medical disorders including cardiovascular, reproductive and developmental problems. The US stopped the production of mercury in 1992. After that year, the metal is only recovered from various end-use products and processes there. However, mercury was, and is continued to be, used as a medicine in traditional practices such as Ayurveda. Potions containing mercury were believed to heal a host of ailments and its use was ubiquitous as a household cure. It remained the drug of choice to treat sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis. ‘A night with Venus leads to a life with Mercury’ was the moral one-liner elders once gave to young men. It was used as ointment, in vapour baths and taken orally. When the presence of mercury at even trace levels of a few ppm (parts per million) is dangerous, what would be the repercussions of ingesting some of the traditional medicines in which mercury is deliberately added as an ingredient? Even though the author discusses about Tibetan medicine, he remains tightlipped on Ayurveda’s connection to mercury.

 

The book points to the serious health issues of ex-workers of the factory and the illnesses among them and the local people were studied in detail. But these were unable to draw conclusions to link the workers’ diseases to mercury exposure. This difficulty is bypassed by dubbing the studies ‘poorly designed and unsophisticated’. It also gives a glimpse of the militant and intimidating tactics of environmental activist groups such as Greenpeace. We read about the pollution control authorities of Tamil Nadu requesting Greenpeace to recommend a consultant to advise it on the health impact of mercury pollution (p.268). The result of such a study is not hard to guess. The author also maligns all experts who differed in their opinion with the activists. The activists’ demands also appear to be endless. After the requirements of recycling the waste and remediation of soil, the next demand was on assessing the risk to ecosystem integrity and not limiting it to risk to human health.

 

Corporations that pollute their surroundings must be taken to task. There is absolutely no going back on this crucial requirement. Sometimes they spend some money on local community development and through their CSR initiatives. The idea is to spend a small sum on enhancing livelihoods, water conservation, waste management and on health and well-being of communities around the factories and gain some peace in return. Also, corporations usually fail to acknowledge their mistakes and negligence when confronted with an ethical dilemma regarding human lives. These are all valid concerns which any company should address and be accountable for. However, they are the lifeline of the country’s economy and should not be needlessly pestered with. The open attack by intransigent environmental activists mostly funded by foreign NGOs must be reined in.

 

This book is a fine example of excellent diction and the entire topic is well structured and planned sequentially in such a way that even peripheral occurrences happen to fall line at the appropriate time. Scientific terms are lucidly explained. The way this book is planned is a model for aspiring authors. The mercury issue of Kodaikanal alone would not have justified the size of the book and hence a lot of side issues are also included. One full part of seven chapters is devoted to the origin and growth of Unilever and its Indian operations. The history of Greenpeace is interspersed with the biography of all leading characters. If you always keep in mind that this book is an expertly crafted piece of propaganda, reading this would be enjoyable while keeping you balanced in your outlook.

 

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star