{"id":9438,"date":"2013-06-04T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2013-06-04T12:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=9438"},"modified":"2014-06-21T14:07:04","modified_gmt":"2014-06-21T17:07:04","slug":"the-paradox-of-sustainable-pollution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=9438","title":{"rendered":"The Paradox of ‘Sustainable’ Pollution"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the original in French by Jane Zhang on Greenetvert click here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

As the world’s governments gathered to discuss sustainable development at the Rio+20 conference last year, vast heavy metal pollution from a steel plant wreaked havoc on residents and the ecosystem of \u200b\u200bSanta Cruz, located just a few kilometers from the conference in Rio’s West Zone. The company responsible, the German group Thyssenkrup, now refuses to pay its fines and will benefit from compensation for its efforts towards “sustainable development.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Santa Cruz<\/a>, which formerly thrived in agricultural and maritime activities, is now bathing in a dust\u00a0layer of heavy metals. This “money rain” as locals call it, is quite present and causes respiratory\u00a0diseases, eye infections and skin diseases. Some residents have even developed severe allergies\u00a0that make their face swell up. In addition, local ecosystems, which provided the livelihood of thousands of\u00a0fishermen families, are now destroyed.<\/p>\n

The large steel complex TKCSA, which was opened in 2010 by the German company ThyssenKrupp,\u00a0covers an area of \u200b\u200b9km\u00b2, formerly occupied by farmers from the\u00a0Landless Workers’ Movement<\/a>. The\u00a0Brazilian government had decided to expel them because they “destroyed the mangroves.” The State\u00a0has, on behalf of local development, promoted this megaproject with the financial support of the Brazilian\u00a0National Development Bank (BNDS)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what is the situation today? Pollution still remains heavy from heavy metals, whether they are\u00a0present in the air, soil or even water. Just 500 meters from houses, TKCSA has increased fine iron\u00a0particles by 600%, while producing nearly 5 million steel plates per year for export. Moreover, since\u00a0the building of the plant in 2006, mangroves have been destroyed to such an extent that fish cannot\u00a0reproduce anymore. More than 8,000 fishermen and their families are now unable to work.\u00a0Because they are undergoing catastrophic impacts, local people pressed charges against\u00a0ThyssenKrupp. At a meeting organized by the company, 200 fishermen reported that they did not want\u00a0the factory. They called for financial compensation and an immediate end to the pollution. In January\u00a02011, the environmental authorities of the State of Rio responded by condemning the company to pay R$17.5 million ($8.2m) an amount ThyssenKrupp has still not paid.<\/p>\n

Against all expectations, the company has initiated a “greenwashing” campaign by publishing its\u00a0efforts in “biodiversity management,” and claiming the so-called sustainable management\u00a0of the mangrove and local\u00a0population. And to add insult to injury, the company might take advantage of “carbon credits” for its\u00a0thermoelectric plant. Indeed, its combined cycle turbines help reduce greenhouse gas emissions,\u00a0according to the United Nations. The institutional world on the international scale is failing on sustainable development. Behind it all hide the real victims–a population and an ecosystem that no longer feel safe at home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the original in French by Jane Zhang on Greenetvert click here.\u00a0 As the world’s governments gathered to discuss sustainable development at the Rio+20 conference last year, vast heavy metal pollution from a steel plant […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":9446,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[335,1330,336],"tags":[726,899,474,267,901,107,900,530,383,471,898,21],"writer":[895],"translator":[896],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-9438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-policies","8":"category-translation","9":"category-violations","10":"tag-air","11":"tag-bnds","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-fishing-colony","14":"tag-greenwashing","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-mangrove","17":"tag-pollution","18":"tag-santa-cruz","19":"tag-sustainability","20":"tag-thyssenkrupp","21":"tag-west-zone","22":"writer-jane-zhang","23":"translator-veronique-phelut"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=9438"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=9438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}