Archived press release

Campaigners attend ici agm to highlight filthy factories

23 April 1998

Shareholders attending today's ICI Annual General Meeting will be greeted by protesters dressed in protective white suits and masks calling on them to challenge the directors over ICI's poor environmental record. FOE believes that most shareholders won't know about ICI's poor green performance and will be unaware of the potential liabilities ICI may be building up. Friends of the Earth campaigners will also attend the AGM to ask ICI to “clean-up” its act and stop making gender bender chemicals. The AGM takes place at the QEII Conference Centre at 10.30 am.

Over the last three years research by FOE has revealed that:

. ICI in Wilton, Teesside is the UK's largest producer of the 'gender bender' chemical alkylphenol ethoxylates. As part of its 'clean-up' operation ICI simply pumps rinsing water from the reaction vessel straight into the River Tees without any form of treatment. ICI estimates that this results in 12 tonnes of the chemical entering the river each year. The River Tees flows into the Teesmouth Flats and Marshes,recognised as an internationally important wildlife site. Alkylphenol ethoxylates are used in industrial detergents even though safer alternatives are available, yet ICI claims that they will “manufacture only those products that can be transported, used and disposed of safely.”

. ICI in Runcorn, Merseyside has been highlighted as the “worst performing site in Britain” in a recent report commissioned by Friends of the Earth. The report revealed that the site does not even have the most basic environmental safeguards (for example, containment around chemical plants to capture spillages), uses out of date and polluting technologies (even though ICI have developed and marketed cleaner processes) and that from just 3 of the 18 different processes they operate there were around 250 unauthorised releases over an 18 month period. ICI were recently fined £300,000 for a pollution incident at the plant, have another prosecution pending [2], and have come under special scrutiny from the Environment Agency.

Dr Michael Warhurst, Toxics Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:

“ICI has a filthy pollution record - in contrast to its green rhetoric - and is exactly the sort of company that ethical investors should avoid. ICI have attracted hefty fines for polluting the environment and now there is growing alarm about the hormone disrupting chemicals ICI and others produce. Shareholders should be fully aware of the environmental damage ICI is causing and call upon the directors to clean up its act.”

ICI is a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] ICI is holding its AGM at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, SW1. Protesters will be arriving at 10.30, the AGM is due to start at 11am.

[2] The Environment Agency is currently prosecuting ICI over the spillage of 56 tonnes of trichloroethylene at Runcorn in May 1997. The case will be heard at Widnes Magistrates Court on the 20th May 1998.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust