Maybe one day large businesses will stop using Africa and poor countries as dumping grounds. At least they came around and compensated the victims of their toxic dumping. Will it have any impact on the future? Doubtful, but there's always a chance. In the end it was their email trail that exposed the truth. The Guardian:
Internal emails show that Trafigura, which yesterday suddenly announced an offer to pay compensation to 31,000 west African victims, was fully aware that its waste dumped in Ivory Coast was so toxic that it was banned in Europe.
Thousands of west Africans besieged local hospitals in 2006, and a number died, after the dumping of hundreds of tonnes of highly toxic oil waste around the country's capital, Abidjan. Official local autopsy reports on 12 alleged victims appeared to show fatal levels of the poisonous gas hydrogen sulphide, one of the waste's lethal byproducts.
