When a US container carrier leaves the port of Thoothukudi in Tamil Nadu this month, it will mark the beginning of the end of a case that is a landmark in environmental activism and corporate responsibility. For, on board the ship will be 290 tonne of hazardous mercury waste.

WASTE NOT, WORRY NOT: Workers at the HLL factory in Kodaikanal

The waste originated at a thermometer factory in Kodaikanal which is owned by Hindustan Lever Limited (HLL), the Indian arm of the Anglo-Dutch multinational, Unilever. The mercury for the thermometers was imported primarily from the US and the finished product was shipped back for sale in the West. HLL raked in profits till 2001 when environmentalists exposed breaches in the manner of disposal of scrap glass with traces of mercury on it.

The controversy was sparked off two years ago when Navroz Mody, an activist of environment NGO Greenpeace, noticed broken glass in a scrapyard in Kodaikanal. More than five tonne of glass scrap was eventually unearthed. Mercury poisoning can cause debilitating diseases especially affecting the brain and kidney. Greenpeace immediately sent an SOS to the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB). Initially, HLL's factory manager denied the allegation, but an unrelenting Greenpeace dug in, collecting samples and proving that the glass tubes were indeed contaminated. There was shock and concern at the HLL headquarters in Mumbai: the Kodaikanal manager was sacked, the HLL promised corrective measures and the factory was closed down on March 8, 2001.

Meanwhile, following representations from the local community and NGOs, the TNPCB constituted the Hazardous Waste Monitoring Committee to acquire details of the factory's operations. But as it didn't have the resources to assess the extent of contamination, HLL hired global environmental consultants URS to prepare a risk assessment report.

In the report submitted to the TNPCB on May 29, 2001, HLL said the "unaccounted loss" of mercury from its factory was 559 kg. Following wide scepticism, HLL submitted another report on June 28, 2002, in which the amount was put at 2,031 kg. "I was unhappy with the way the company presented the figures," says TNPCB Chairperson Sheela Chunkath. The TNPCB came down heavily on HLL, ordering it to ship the waste out of India.

HLL agreed to abide by the TNPCB's rulings and packed 290 tonne of mercury waste for shipment to Bethlehem Apparatus in Pennsylvania, US, the world's largest recycler of mercury. The 1999 Basel Convention allows such waste to be shipped back from a country that is unable to manage it. As for the plant and machinery, they will be decontaminated and disposed of as scrap as per protocol. "We have set new standards in corporate decency," says Subhabrata Bhattacharya, head of HLL's corporate communications.

That, environmentalists feel, is not the end of the story. "We are sure large quantities of mercury have been pushed into the environment," says Mody. HLL's studies estimate that while 1,353 kg of mercury has gone into Pambar Shola, the valley behind the factory premises, 290 kg is present in the nearly 7,500 tonne of soil within the factory premises. The real problem, according to URS, is in certain areas in the factory where 4,100 cubic metre of soil requires remediation. This soil will be brought to the plains where it would be properly secured or landfilled at hazardous waste disposal sites after permission from the TNPCB.

However, debate continues over the level of mercury in the soil outside the factory, the means to clean it up, as also the possible poisoning that former employees may have suffered. According to the ex-employees' association, more than 10 workers have died in the past 18 years, but HLL counters, "Following comprehensive medical testing, it has been confirmed that none has suffered any adverse health effects resulting from exposure to mercury."

The TNPCB doesn't want to be involved in the dispute saying it has competence to deal only with the environmental aspect. Even as the heat on the issue continues to rise, the workers are safe in the knowledge that at least a part of their problems will soon be shipped out of their lives.