London, Europe Brief News – Toxic chemicals have been found at various places in Turkey where the Uk has been disposing of plastic waste for many years.
Greenpiece Mediterranean informed that it had found hazardous chemical pollutants and heavy metals at the places where the majority of waste was burned.
One of the recent investigations suggests that British food packaging has been continuously dumping plastic waste in those 5 places.
Megan Randles from Greenpeace Uk said “This is the toxic fingerprint of Britain’s dangerous pattern of dumping plastic waste out of sight and out of mind.”
She further added “This proof of the harm our plastic can cause, when dumped and burned overseas, should spur the government on to do the right thing and ban plastic waste exports”
Greenpiece claims that scientists have discovered the levels of toxic chemicals in the soil and ash at some places which are thousand times higher than control sites.
Contamination
With the conduction of a special examination by the Greenpeace research team, Samples of soil, ash, water and sediment gathered from the five places.
They tested to check as many chemical pollutants as possible from 60 chemical pollutants associated with packaging or burning of plastics.
Greenpiece Mediterranean said “some of the organic chemical pollutants identified in the area are not only toxic but highly persistent and can biologically accumulate once they enter the food chain”.
The found chemicals were dioxins and furans, which can be deadly foetuses, premature birth and trigger tumours are the metals which can damage the nervous system.
The department for Environment, Food and Rural affairs spokesperson said “ We are clear that the Uk should handle more of its waste at home and are committed to banning the export of plastic waste to non OECD countries and cracking down on illegal waste export”
They added that the environment agency has not yet received any repatriation requests from the Turkish authorities for any waste including plastic.
Greenpeace Uk is asking government authority to enact the environment bill, and use the powers to ban all plastic waste exports.
Green peace Uk is also requesting for a complete ban on all plastic waste exports by 2025 and for the government to set legally binding targets to decrease single use plastic by 50% by 2025.
