Authorities in India have removed hundreds of tons of poisonous garbage from a chemical plant that saw one of the world’s deadliest gas leaks 40 years ago.
In December 1984, thousands of people died in the central city of Bhopal as a result of inhaling deadly gas that had spilled from the facility.
Around 337 tons of dangerous trash were transported from the Union Carbide plant to an incinerator site some 230 kilometers (143 miles) away on Wednesday, after a court order last month to dispose of it within four weeks.
Officials claim it will take three to nine months to process and remove the garbage, but environmentalists have expressed concerns about potential health risks at the new location.
Since the catastrophe, the poisonous material had been stored in the shuttered facility, poisoning groundwater in the nearby area.
The toxic waste cleared from the plant this week includes five categories of dangerous compounds, including pesticide residue and “forever chemicals” left over from the manufacturing process. These compounds earn their moniker because their harmful characteristics last endlessly.
Over decades, pollutants from the abandoned factory site have quietly seeped into the local ecosystem, posing a long-term health risk to residents.
The process of moving the waste began on Sunday when officials started packing it in leak-proof bags. These bags were then loaded onto 12 sealed trucks on Wednesday.
Swatantra Kumar Singh, the head of Bhopal gas tragedy relief and rehabilitation department, stated that initially, some of the waste would be burnt at the disposal unit in Pithampur and its residue examined for toxic remains.
He said that special arrangements had been made to ensure that fumes from the incinerator or the ash left after do not pollute the air and water.
But activists and people living near the disposal site have been protesting against the move.
They said that a small amount of waste from the Union Carbide factory was destroyed at the plant on a trial basis in 2015, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported.
