Yet another example of India being the most-favoured destination for toxic material from all over the world: containers carrying thousands of barrels of toxic, cancer-causing waste oil imported from Gulf countries is passed off as furnace oil—only to lie dumped at the ports.

Almost 2,385 tonnes of waste oil in 133 containers have been sitting in Mumbai’s Nhava Sheva Port for five years. The oil contains polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), a cocktail of globally banned cancer-causing chemicals. It has taken no less than the Supreme Court to intervene to start incinerating this massive toxic pile. Last month, the court was told that 40% of the lot has been disposed.

But worse lies ahead. Another lot of 209 containers—each container has 98 oil drums—sits in the same port, having arrived in 2000, the same year as the earlier 133. These were sent for tests only this January to the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa. Of these, 190 containers were found to contain waste oil. The list of importers has been submitted to the court only last month. Result: the clean-up of this lot hasn’t even begun.

The more the delay, the more difficult and expensive the job gets.

Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) officers had a narrow escape when some of the drums they were about to test burst open.

‘‘The contents are in precarious and hazardous condition. Many drums have become distended due to expansion of gases. Many are leaking. In some cases, waste oil erupts or spurts from the barrel as soon as the cap is opened. There is a strong smell of sulphide in the supplies, indicating contamination of serious nature,’’ says the report submitted by the Supreme Court Monitoring Committee to the Supreme Court.

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