Submission to the ERMA Application for the Reassessment of Methyl Bromide

Protest schedule April 2010

Six Nelson port workers have died of motor neurone disease in recent years. A cluster of deaths such as this is 25 times the international average for the general population.

One thing they all had in common was their workplace, where methyl bromide is used to fumigate logs for export.

Professor Ian Shaw, Toxicologist and Pro Vice-Chancellor at theUniversity of Canterbury, asserts that methyl bromide may have caused motor neurone disease in the Nelson Port workers.

The bromine from methyl bromide is also 60 times more destructive to ozone on an atom-per-atom basis than the chlorine from CFCs. So not only is it bad for workers, it’s bad for all of us.

There are much safer alternatives to methyl bromide including heat treatment, irradiation, water soaking, debarking, and microwave treatment. There are other chemical treatments which present fewer hazards to workers and to the environment.

The Environmental Risk Management Authority (ERMA) is currently reassessing the use of Methyl Bromide, and deciding whether to allow the continued use of the highly toxic gas which has already been banned in the EU.