Fiona Macleod
While the world signed a landmark treaty this week outlawing 12 of the most dangerous chemical concoctions, a major South African company continues to trade openly in one of these toxins.
Chlordane, a pesticide used mainly on building sites to get rid of termites underground, is one of the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are either banned or restricted in most parts of the world. South Africa was one of 90 countries that signed a United Nations treaty on Wednesday aimed at getting rid of the “dirty dozen”.
Most South African chemical companies started phasing out chlordane two years ago and agreed to stop trading in it by the end of March last year. The Department of Agriculture agreed to stop registering the product, in line with the international POPs Convention that South Africa has also signed.
But thousands of litres of chlordane are still being sold by Gulf Chemicals, based in KwaZulu-Natal. It is alleged that Gulf is continuing to manufacture the toxin, with the approval of the department’s registrar, Etienne Wolmarans.
“We want that product off the market,” says Jan Kleynhans, executive director of the Crop Protection and Animal Health Association (Avcasa), a voluntary association of 95% of the country’s chemical companies. “We decided that by the end of last year there would be no more sales of chlordane.
“If Gulf has a social or environmental conscience, it will not offer this product for sale.”
Avcasa says thousands of litres of chlordane manufactured by Gulf Chemicals have been found in a warehouse in Durban. Together with the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s poison working group, the association is calling on Wolmarans to confiscate the stocks.
The department stopped registering chlordane last year because it is among the chemical toxins blamed for causing fatal diseases and birth defects among humans and animals. It takes a long time to break down in the environment and the only way the South African government can curtail its effects is to store it in safe containers until it has the ability to incinerate it.
“Two years ago the department spent R13-million on removing 1 200 tons of these kinds of products from around the country,” says Kleynhans. “Some 750 tons of the more toxic stuff was sent to Wales for incineration and the rest is being stored until we can find a way to burn it.”
Gulf Chemicals’s holding company, Volcano Agrosciences, is a member of Avcasa and is breaching the association’s moratorium by continuing to trade in chlordane. Mukthar Shaik, a director at Gulf who runs the day-to-day business in Mount Edgecombe, says there is a great demand for the product in other African countries, even though there are less toxic alternatives for termite treatment.
Shaik says Gulf had about 70 000 litres of chlordane in stock when the deregistration of the product came into effect last year. He denies his company is still manufacturing chlordane.
“It’s unfair to expect us just to get rid of these stocks, which are worth millions of rands, at such short notice,” he says. “If people want me to get rid of the stocks left on my floor, they must find the money for this.”
Avcasa says it has evidence that Gulf was manufacturing chlordane as recently as February last year and that these stocks are being sold in Durban. Kleynhans says he has reported the breach to Wolmarans, but no official response has been forthcoming.
Wolmarans was not available for comment this week, but his technical adviser, Johan Vermeulen, said the department would be forced to ban chlordane if chemical companies carried on importing and selling it. So far the pesticide has been deregistered only in South Africa.
Shaik argues that the department would be applying double standards if it confiscated his stocks. “Chlordane is not as dangerous as DDT, which the government is still using in KwaZulu-Natal to combat malaria,” he says.
Shaik, whose father established Gulf Chemicals 30 years ago, claims it is the only “empowered” chemical company in the country. He says he is not related to the Shaik brothers involved in South Africa’s arms deal.