News & events

TV Interview – Is it Safe?

Posted on March 18, 2025 in Bhopal, Losing Control

I was interviewed as part of a DW News report about the incineration of toxic waste from the former Union carbide factory in Bhopal.

Macleod is my maiden and professional name, Erskine is my married and pen name. I used to keep my writing and engineering persona completely separate, but since  joining the University of Sheffield as Professor of Process Safety in the Department of Chemical, Materials and Biological Engineering, I have relaxed the Jekyll and Hyde divide.

I only had a few minutes to speak so here are some further notes.

Bhopal’s Toxic Legacy

There are two ongoing tragedies.

The first tragedy relates to the accident itself – a release of toxic gases on the night of 2/3 December 1984 and the woeful failure to adequately compensate or support the victims of the worst industrial accident in history.

The second tragedy is the failure to clean up a heavily polluted industrial site which was – to all intents and purposes – abandoned after the 1984 accident. In environmental law there is a very clear principle that the polluter must pay.

Why is the waste still there?

In the 1989 settlement between the Government of India (which represented the victims of the tragedy in court) and Union Carbide Corporation (the majority shareholder of the factory which released the toxic gas and caused the tragedy) no provision was made for cleaning up the site.

In 1994, the Government allowed UCC to sell its share of the Union Carbide India Ltd (UCIL) business to Eveready Industries India Ltd. This included the lease on the Bhopal site.

In 1998  the State of Madhya Pradesh revoked the 99 year lease (citing lack of economic activity) and the ownership of the site passed back to the State of Madhya Pradesh.

In 2001 Dow bought what was left of the Union Carbide Corporation.

So who is responsible now? Who will fund the clean up? Ignoring it won’t make it go away – in fact it will make more difficult and expensive.

Whatever the LEGAL status of responsibility, there is a moral and ethical responsibility which says that the original polluter should pay.  UCIL no longer exists as a legal entity, and so far all attempts to establish financial responsibility (through the US and Indian courts) have failed.

Is it safe to dispose of the waste from Bhopal by incineration?

The waste we’re talking about predates the 1984 accident. It was produced during the operation of the site as a pesticide factory between 1969 and 1984. Some of the waste was packaged and stored above ground. Most of the waste is buried underground.

In order to decide if incineration is an acceptable solution for the packaged waste, it’s key to understand the hazard (what can hurt us), the controls (how we protect ourselves) and the residual risk (how likely is it to do us harm) and decide if that represents a tolerable societal risk.

I don’t know the exact composition of the 337 tonnes of packaged waste. What I do know is that it likely contains pesticide residue (CARBARYL and ALDICARB) reactor residue (including  the very nasty GAMMA HEXA CHLORO CYCCLO HEXANE) plus soil excavated from known hazardous waste dumping grounds which may contain heavy metals like mercury and chromium.

Without knowing the exact composition of the waste, the capability of the incinerator system  (temperature control, gas cleaning and destination of the solid ash) it’s impossible calculate the residual risk and say whether it’s acceptable or not.

I assume that others have this information. How else could they have decided it was safe to proceed? So why don’t they share it? It’s generally better to engage with than to fight the local population.

What is happening to the other >99% of toxic waste that remains underground?

The former Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) Site in Bhopal is heavily contaminated with pesticides, chlorinated benzene compounds and heavy metals. All studies have confirmed this.

Where there is disagreement is on how extensive the contamination is, how deep it goes and how much it has spread out over the decades.

The current strategy seems to be ‘If we don’t look we won’t find anything’ and anyway we’ll rely on the geology (a supposedly impervious layer of clay below the site) to contain the problem.

However most of the earlier studies have found spreading groundwater contamination. The contamination is found more towards the reported direction of the groundwater flow, i.e. north-east. Although many of the drinking water wells have been taken out of service, domestic animals continue to drink polluted water and graze on contaminated land. The trouble with heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants is that they can pass through the food chain and affect unborn children.

There are things to do immediately.

Improve site security – when I visited in 2023, I was able to walk right into the former UCIL site through an open gate with no security. There were people grazing their animals on the site, and evidence that people were living there. Children play cricket on what was once a toxic waste dump because it’s relatively clear of vegetation.

Stop monsoon runoff – while figuring out the hydrogeology, it’s essential to stop the surface run-off. Rainwater that falls on the site and solar evaporation ponds during monsoon should be collected and treated.

Commission an Independent Scientific Study – Before any decision is taken for a medium term plan, we need to properly characterise the type and location of contamination, where it is and how it’s moving. We’re not just talking about the former UCIL site, but also the Solar Evaporation Ponds outside the site boundary.

Who knows what microorganisms have developed in the soil over the decades – we could be sitting on really important information that might help us clean up other polluted industrial sites in India and beyond.

Build a Memorial and Centre of Excellence

Bhopal is a beautiful city, full of lakes and gardens and some of the very best museums in the world. There are 8 universities and 2 UNESCO heritage sites.

Why not channel all that technical capability and artistic creativity into creating a lasting memorial and a center of excellence in industrial disaster management and hazardous waste treatment.

Why not create something positive from the ashes of this horrific tragedy?

It’s good to see that German TV is covering a topic that has received very little media attention inside or outside of India.

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