Thousands of tonnes of banned pesticides shipped to poorer countries from British and European factories,
Year long investigation reveals full scale of Europe’s ‘abhorrent’ trade in pesticides banned from its own farms - and the UK’s leading role.
The United Kingdom is by far Europe’s biggest exporter of toxic banned pesticides to poorer countries, an Unearthed and Public Eye investigation has revealed.
It found that EU countries issued plans in 2018 to export more than 81,000 tonnes of pesticides containing chemicals prohibited in their own fields.
Poorer countries like South Africa, Ukraine, and Brazil – where experts warn hazardous pesticide use poses the greatest risks – were the intended destination for the bulk of shipments.
The UK was responsible for 13,760 tonnes of those planned shipments to low- and middle-income countries – close to three times the amount attributable to any other exporter.
Among the banned agrochemicals shipped by the tonne from EU ports were substances found by the EU’s own authorities to pose potential health hazards like reproductive failure, endocrine disruption or cancer, and environmental hazards like groundwater contamination or poisoning of fish, birds, mammals or bees.
Loopholes in European law mean chemical companies like Bayer and Syngenta can continue making pesticides for export long after they have been banned from use in the EU to protect the environment or the health of its citizens.
The investigation found:
EU countries including the UK notified exports of 81,615 tonnes of banned pesticide products in 2018, with more than half (42,636 tonnes) intended for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs);
These exports were destined for 85 different countries, of which more than three quarters were LMICs: Brazil, Ukraine, Morocco, Mexico and South Africa were all among the top 10 importers of EU banned pesticide exports;
Two thirds of the notified exports to richer nations were destined for one place: the US, which has some of the most permissive pesticide regulations among high-income countries and is itself a major exporter of banned agrochemicals to LMICs;
The products notified for export in 2018 contained 41 different banned pesticides, many of which have been prohibited from use in the EU for more than a decade;
While the UK was by far the biggest player by volume, Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Spain and Belgium were all major exporters;
Swiss-based, Chinese-owned Syngenta was by far the biggest exporter of banned agrochemicals among manufacturers, with notified exports of 29,307 tonnes – close to three times those of its nearest competitor;
But more than two dozen other companies notified banned agrochemical exports from the EU in 2018, ranging from listed multinationals like US-based Corteva Agriscience and Germany’s Bayer, to lesser-known businesses like Italy’s Sipcam Oxon or the UK’s Inovyn;
As the EU continues to ban pesticides found hazardous to human health or the environment, it is adding to the list of products it produces solely for export: Unearthed and Public Eye found that in 2019 pesticide companies issued their first-ever export notifications for nine recently-banned pesticides;
https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/
Visualisations by Martin Grandjean,
Picture: Weedkiller is sprayed on a soybean field in the Cerrado plains near Campo Verde, Mato Grosso state. Brazil is one of the top destinations for the EU’s banned pesticide exports. banned pesticide exports. Photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP / Getty
The full data is available here.
