Sludgy secrets of the aluminum companies
Sludgy secrets of the aluminum companies
Production of the metal has exacted a huge toll.
By Madhusree Mukerjee
Last week, a toxic red sludge poured into three Hungarian villages, killing nine people, threatening the Danube River, and bursting the dam around a well-kept secret: The production of aluminum - vast quantities of which are used in cars, aircraft, packaging, weaponry, and more - is highly poisonous to living creatures. The devastation caused by the aluminum industry is usually invisible, however, because it's wreaked on some of the most remote corners of the Earth.
In an unusually frank 1951 report, industry analyst Dewey Anderson observed that the social and environmental costs of aluminum production were such that "the U.S. cannot any longer afford to make aluminum if it can be obtained in large enough quantities and on favorable price terms from other sources." As a result of such considerations, the mining, refining, and smelting of the metal has moved largely to corrupt, resource-rich countries where environmental and human-rights protections are weak.
Accidents are common in the industry. Caustic, radioactive red mud from the waste pond of an aluminum refinery in Lanjigarh, in eastern India, often contaminates the nearby Vamsadhara River. Several people have died of burns after bathing in the river. In 2000, the white-ash pond of an aluminum smelter in Angul, also in eastern India, breached its wall and swallowed 20 villages, causing many deaths and a toxic flash flood.........................
Production of the metal has exacted a huge toll.
By Madhusree Mukerjee
Last week, a toxic red sludge poured into three Hungarian villages, killing nine people, threatening the Danube River, and bursting the dam around a well-kept secret: The production of aluminum - vast quantities of which are used in cars, aircraft, packaging, weaponry, and more - is highly poisonous to living creatures. The devastation caused by the aluminum industry is usually invisible, however, because it's wreaked on some of the most remote corners of the Earth.
In an unusually frank 1951 report, industry analyst Dewey Anderson observed that the social and environmental costs of aluminum production were such that "the U.S. cannot any longer afford to make aluminum if it can be obtained in large enough quantities and on favorable price terms from other sources." As a result of such considerations, the mining, refining, and smelting of the metal has moved largely to corrupt, resource-rich countries where environmental and human-rights protections are weak.
Accidents are common in the industry. Caustic, radioactive red mud from the waste pond of an aluminum refinery in Lanjigarh, in eastern India, often contaminates the nearby Vamsadhara River. Several people have died of burns after bathing in the river. In 2000, the white-ash pond of an aluminum smelter in Angul, also in eastern India, breached its wall and swallowed 20 villages, causing many deaths and a toxic flash flood.........................
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