The toxins of the Bhopal disaster | Explained

Forty years after the Bhopal disaster on December 2-3, 1984, several hundred tonnes of toxic waste still remain around the ill-fated Union Carbide plant. This year, Madhya Pradesh received ₹126 crore from the Union government to incinerate around 340 tonnes of the aboveground material, but others have resisted the plan saying burning the compounds will release poisonous fumes that could lead to further contamination and adverse health effects. As The Hindu reported on December 2, “a 2010 government-commissioned study showed that … the factory premises also contain about 11 lakh tonnes of contaminated soil, one tonne of mercury, and nearly 150 tonnes of underground dumps” — in addition to the 340 metric tonnes earmarked for incineration. According to the Stockholm Convention on POPs, their effects include “cancer, allergies and hypersensitivity, damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, reproductive disorders, and disruption of the immune system.” Some POPs have also been associated with developmental disorders and worse outcomes in cancers of the liver, breasts, pancreas, and the prostate.