40 years on, Union Carbide toxic waste set to travel 250 km for disposal

Public Lokpal
December 30, 2024

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40 years on, Union Carbide toxic waste set to travel 250 km for disposal

BHOPAL/ INDORE: The work to remove 377 metric tonnes of hazardous waste from the now-defunct Union Carbide factory in Bhopal got underway on Sunday ahead of its planned disposal near Indore.

The development comes weeks after the Madhya Pradesh High Court chided the authorities for not taking action despite repeated directions, including that of the Supreme Court, to clear the site in the MP capital. The “state of inertia” may cause “another tragedy”, it had said.

On the intervening night of December 2-3, 1984, the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from the Union Carbide pesticides factory killing 5,479 people and leaving more than five lakh others with health effects and long-term disabilities.

About half a dozen GPS-enabled trucks with specially reinforced containers reached the factory site on Sunday morning. Several workers wearing special PPE kits and officials of the Bhopal Municipal Corporation, environmental agencies, doctors and incineration experts were seen working at the site.

Policemen were also deployed around the factory.

As per the plan, the toxic waste will be moved to an incineration site in Pithampur near Indore, around 250 km from Bhopal, official sources said.

The MP High Court on December 3 had set a four-week deadline to shift the toxic waste from the factory, observing that even 40 years after the gas disaster, the authorities were in a “state of inertia” that may cause “another tragedy”.

Describing it as a “sorry state of affairs”, the HC had warned the government of contempt proceedings if its directive was not followed.

“We fail to understand that in spite of issuance of various directions from time to time by the Hon’ble Supreme Court as well as by this Court, pursuant to the plan dated 23.03.2024, till date no steps seem to have been taken to remove to the toxic waste and material,” a division bench of Chief Justice SK Kait and Justice Vivek Jain had said.

The HC will hear the matter on January 6.

“The waste of Bhopal gas tragedy is a stigma which is going to disappear after 40 years. We will dispose of it by sending it safely to Pithampur,” Swatantra Kumar Singh, director of the state’s Gas Relief and Rehabilitation Departme

nt told PTI.