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COME CLEAN ON TOXIC TIME-BOMBS

28 Apr 2000

PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

10.30 am, Friday28th April 2000 at Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Westminster. Protestors will be wearing white-suits, face masks and carrying “toxic time-bombs”.

Friends of the Earth will lobby shareholders at ICI's AGM today, demanding that the company identify liabilities associated with its past and present toxic releases. Friends of the Earth has already written to ICI's top shareholders, and positive responses have already been received from Friends Ivory & Sime, Gloucestershire Pension Fund and others. The FOE action follows the discovery this year of toxic gas leaking into houses from an ICI dump in Runcorn, Cheshire, forcing people to be moved from their homes.

ICI has been targeted by Friends of the Earth because of its appalling track record on pollution and because of concerns about the chemicals it makes (briefing available).Friends of the Earth will meet the ICI Chairman in early June to raise:

• ICI's continued production of hormone disrupting alkylphenol ethoxylates, fingered by the Environment Agency in a strategy on hormone disrupting chemicals and wildlife.
• ICI's dump in Runcorn, Cheshire, where families have been permanently moved from 22 homes in Weston village because of toxic gas leaking into their homes.Community campaigns for compensation are now underway in the area.
• The lack of comprehensive data available on past and present releases of toxic materials to air, water and land. It is known that in 1998 ICI released over 4000 tonnes of carcinogens to air.

Mike Childs, Senior Pollution Campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said:

“ ICI has an appalling pollution record. Weston residents are now paying for the company's failure to take the environment seriously. Friends of the Earth wants shareholders to do their bit by making sure that ICI comes clean about all of its toxic time-bombs. That's the only way the company - and the communities in which it is based - can have a safe, clean and green future.”

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