Coalition against the use of Methyl Bromide

Coalition against the use of Methyl Bromide 

Protest Schedule 

Picton 

Date: Friday April 23

Time: 12.00

Location: Shakespeare Bay Lookout
(meet at Le Café, London Quay, 11.45am)

Map - http://bit.ly/9tNucR  

Wellington 

Date: Monday April 26

Time: 12.00

Location: The footpath outside of the Bluebridge entrance
(Waterloo quay, over the road from the railway station)
Map - http://bit.ly/9MqJ2R  

Tauranga 

Date: Wednesday April 28

Time: 12.00

Location: Corner of Totara St and Hull Rd. It is the first intersection from the wharf.

Map - http://bit.ly/aZW3US   

The Coalition includes the following organisations: Soil and Health New Zealand AssociationThe Green PartyThe Rail and Maritime Transport UnionCouncil of Trade UnionsThe Safe Food CampaignGuardian of the SoundsThe Pesticide Action NetworkMaritime Union New Zealand Friends of Nelsonhaven and Tasman Bay

Read the CTU submission to ERMA calling for methyl bromide to be banned.

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.