Toxic chemicals - the problems

Shifting responsibility? Too often toxic waste problems are transferred to places ill-equipped to deal with them

How we manufacture things and how we dispose of waste can have a serious impact - both on us and the world around us. Toxic pollution doesn't stay inside rubbish tips, within factory gates, or even inside countries. It can travel thousands of kilometres in air and water, and enter our homes uninvited in the goods we buy.

Many products we use in everyday life, from shower gel to T-shirts and even children's toys, contain harmful artificial chemicals, which contaminate our air, food and drinking water before finding their way into our bodies. Most of the time we use them without even realising, or stopping to think about the long-lasting effects they are having on our health, and the health of the natural world. If you were to analyse the fat in your own body, you would be likely to find harmful chemicals such as brominated flame retardants, DDT, dioxins and many other persistent organic pollutants (POPs). POPs are chemicals that your body cannot get rid of, so they gradually build up over our lifetimes. Worryingly, POPs are even found in babies still in the womb.

Hazardous chemicals

The production, trade, use, and release of many synthetic chemicals are now widely recognised as a global threat to human health and the environment. Yet the world's chemical industries continue to produce and release thousands of these compounds every year, in most cases with no or very little testing to understand their impact on people and the environment. Needless to say, current regulations are failing to protect us.

E-waste

The other side of the equation is waste and what to do with all our rubbish. Currently much of it is dumped untreated into large holes in the ground, including ever-increasing numbers of electrical gadgets such as mobile phones and computers, all of which contain a long list of poisons. Besides wasting valuable resources that could easily be recycled, poisons can leak out from these landfill sites, polluting water supplies and the wider environment. We are working to get the companies that make millions from producing high-tech gadgets to take full responsibility for the whole life-cycle of their products - from production to safe disposal.

It might seem that one answer to our waste problem would be increased incineration. But burning rubbish doesn't really make it disappear - it comes back to haunt us in the form of harmful gases and contaminated ash. When incinerated, already dangerous chemicals can combine into a range of new, sometimes highly toxic substances.

Slideshow: Electronics dirty secret

Video: Where does e-waste end up? 

Toxic Trade

Another option tried by many developed countries facing stricter environmental regulations has been the transfer of their toxic technologies to the developing world. We have documented hundreds of cases where developed countries have traded or transferred toxic waste problems to regions of the world least equipped to deal with the inevitable pollution and accidents, so we are fighting to bring an end to this toxic trade.
In the end we have to take responsibility for cleaning up our own mess, and recognise that the best way to minimise the effects of toxic pollution is to produce as little of it as possible.