Destination of the dioxin from Seveso
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Assembly debate on 26 April 1983 (3rd Sitting) (see Doc. 5060, report of the Committee on Social and Health Questions). Text adopted by the Assembly on 26 April 1983 (3rd Sitting).
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Recalling the disaster of Seveso where, in 1976, leaks of poisonous and toxic products harmed many of the town's population as well as its environment ;
2. Taking note that the companies Hoffmann-Laroche and Mannesmann-Italiana and their subcontractors are not prepared to give information regarding the place where the forty-one barrels of waste contaminated by dioxin and belonging to the ICMESA factory, responsible for the Seveso incident, have been transported and stored ;
3. Shocked by the fact that forty-one dangerous barrels could circulate in several member states without any serious check or obstacle ;
4. Considering that current industrial production in several fields gives rise to waste which is dangerous for the population and the environment ;
5. Concerned by the lack in some countries of effective legislation and regulations on the transport and disposal of dangerous, including radioactive, wastes despite the increase in transfrontier shipments and the dumping of such material at sea in the last decade and the dangers this represents to public health and safety ;
6. Considering the necessity of taking steps to ensure that the nature of these waste products to be disposed of is known, and of strictly enforcing existing legislation and regulations on the transport and disposal of dangerous waste ;
7. Recalling the European Parliament's resolution of 14 April 1983 on this subject,
8. Urges the governments of member states and the companies involved to take urgent joint action to find and store in accordance with safety norms the forty-one barrels of dioxin ;
9. Insists that the European public be made fully aware of the results of the inquiry ;
10. Expresses the hope that the Committee of Ministers will rapidly draw up a legal instrument governing the control of the final storage of toxic substances and dangerous waste in the member states and any transfrontier shipment ;
11. Invites its competent committees, in addition to the Parliamentary Hearing on the Disposal of High-level Radioactive Waste scheduled for November 1983, to take similar action concerning other toxic substances of a dangerous nature and to report to the Assembly in January 1984.
