GREENPEACE DEMANDS CEMENT KILN COMPANY COMES CLEAN

22 May 2001

Stockholm, Sweden - At 6.00am this morning, 60 Greenpeace activists barricaded all entrances to the head office of the cement kiln company, 'Cementa', on Gotland Island off the Swedish coast. Twenty activists stopped the plant's managers from entering the office by chaining themselves to the office doors and demanded that 'Cementa' abandons its plans to incinerate waste in the company's cement kiln.

Over the past four years, 'Cementa' has increased the volume of waste it burns and its releases of toxic pollutants into the environment. Recently, it has expanded its plant and built facilities to store imported hazardous waste. A few weeks ago, the plant started to incinerate dangerous waste imported from the UK. Greenpeace is demanding that the plant stops all waste incineration and stops releasing toxic chemicals, including persistent organic pollutants (POPs) into the environment. World Ministers will adopt a global treaty to eliminate all POPs in Stockholm today. The Stockholm Convention specifically states that burning of hazardous waste in cement kilns is a significant source of POPs. (1)

Greenpeace has been taking action against 'Cementa' for the past week. As well as burning hazardous waste, plastic and rubber tyres, Greenpeace discovered last week that it is also illegally burning mixed waste imported from Holland and Norway. Last night, this was confirmed by the Swedish regional authorities.

"'Cementa' is not being honest about its practices. It's time they put their cards on the table, came clean and stop fuelling their ovens to the detriment of the environment. The Swedish government should show its conviction to eliminate POPs by stopping both this and all other POPs polluting industries, including incinerators," said Greenpeace campaigner, Gunnar Lind.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:
For further information on this and other Greenpeace actions today, see http://archive.greenpeace.org/toxics/globalactions.html

For further information call:
-Matilda Bradshaw, Greenpeace International Media on + 31 6 535 04701
-Gunnar Lind, Greenpeace toxics campaigner on + 46 70 397 6673
Footage and stills are available on request.

(1) The Stockholm Convention is scheduled to be signed tomorrow.

Greenpeace activists were arrested yesterday in the Lebanon and Thailand for protesting against continued releases of persistent organic pollutants into the environment. Activists in Turkey have been occupying the top of an incinerator stack since yesterday morning.