Members of four NGOs, working for the benefit of the survivors and victims of the 1984-Bhopal gas tragedy at the Union Carbide factory, have demanded that the 337 tonnes of waste from the factory, currently lying at an incineration facility in Pithampur in MP, be sent to the US for incineration, just like the US is sending back illegal Indian immigrants from there.

Addressing mediapersons in Bhopal on Monday, Nawab Khan, President of Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Purush Sangharsh Morcha, strongly pushed for Union Carbide’s waste to be sent to the USA.

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“Back in 2003, the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board compelled Unilever to carry about 300 tonnes of its hazardous waste from its thermometer plant at Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu to New York,” he claimed.

“The waste was disposed of safely in a closed-loop facility with zero emissions. Why does not the MP Pollution Control Board follow the precedent set by their Tamil Nadu counterpart,” he argued.

“If the US government can send back our citizens in shackles, can’t our government take the legally valid route and send Union Carbide’s poisonous waste to the USA?” he questioned.

The Union Carbide, a former US Company, has now been taken over by Dow Chemicals, another US-based MNC.

Twelve container trucks with 337 tonnes of waste, feared to be hazardous, transported from Bhopal, were on Thursday unloaded in the incineration facility at Pithampur.

Protests had rocked Pithampur, around 50 km from Dhar district headquarters, after the waste was brought there from Bhopal on 2 January to a private facility, Ramky Enviro, for incineration, 40 years after the tragedy.

Those objecting to the move claim that the waste’s incineration at Pithampur would harm the local residents’ health and the environment.

According to official figures, about 5,500 people were killed and five lakh were injured, including thousands with life-long serious health problems and long-term disabilities, in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, which occurred due to the leak of highly toxic Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) gas from the Union Carbide pesticide factory in Bhopal on the intervening night of December 2 and 3, 1984. It is termed to be one of the world’s worst industrial disasters.