A British quarry is every day leaking toxins into the beautiful countryside after Monsanto used the site as a dumping ground for its waste for decades. No one knows just exactly how devastating the seepage from Ty Llwyd quarry, near Caerphilly, south Wales, will be but nature cannot break down the notorious polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. PCBs are known as "forever chemicals" because they largely can't disintegrate. The quarry is on the edge of Bannau Brycheiniog, formely known as Brecon Beacons national park. Caerphilly Council, investigating the extent of the damage the PCBs are likely to cause to nature and humans, stated last week it needs a further 12 to 18 months to conclude its probe. In February 2023 a group of campaigners, led by Caerphilly councillors as well as environmental champion Reverend Paul Cawthorne, challenged the council on its management of the quarry – which Caerphilly Council now runs – asking for evidence of a fabled "discharge consent form", and asking when the land at Ty Llwyd would officially be classed as contaminated, leading to stricter restrictions on work done in the area. The Mirror

 

 

Chemicals giant BASF has a time-honoured tradition of threatening economic catastrophe every time the industry is faced with regulatory measures to rein in its toxic trade. But the real catastrophe is how the company imposes a huge burden — materially, morally, and financially — across the continent, from its toxic “forever chemicals” and hazardous pesticides to its contribution to climate change, writes Vicky Cann of Corporate Europe Observatory. BASF shareholders recently met in Mannheim and awarded themselves billions in dividend payments. It is now long overdue for EU politicians to see beyond BASF rhetoric and to get to grips with the toxics and climate crises. EuroNews

 

 

New Brunswick MP Jenica Atwin and prominent documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal are calling on Parliament to ban the use of glyphosate, Canada’s most widely-used weedkiller. Atwin presented a petition – signed by more than 18,000 Canadians and backed by numerous environmental organisations – to her parliamentary colleagues. “There is an alarming and growing body of independent scientific research proving glyphosate’s harm to humans and all other life that Canada’s regulator, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, is ignoring,” says Baichwal, whose recent CBC documentary, Into the Weeds: Dewayne Lee Johnson vs. Monsanto Company, investigated the damaging and systemic impacts of glyphosate. Atwood writes about glyphosate and the work of Baichwal here. QUOi

 

 

Researchers based in Brazil have found that glyphosate-based weedkiller, including at concentrations found in nature, caused serious harm to bees. Effects included death, motor changes (decreased speed and tremors), excessive self-cleaning, and disorientation (return to light and stop). Although the researchers did not test for pollination effects, they infer from their results that the weedkiller tested can negatively affect the pollination activity of bees. Ecotoxicology

 

 

Damage to non-dicamba-tolerant soybean has been frequent in areas where GM dicamba-tolerant soybean and cotton have been grown and sprayed with the herbicide in recent years. Off-target movement field trials were conducted in northwest Arkansas to determine the relationship between dicamba concentration in the air and the extent of injury to non-dicamba-tolerant soybean. Dicamba was frequently detected in eastern Arkansas, and daily detections above the level found to cause a 10% injury to non-dicamba-tolerant soybeans occurred 17 times in the period sampled. The researchers concluded, "Dicamba was detected consistently in air samples collected, indicating high usage in the region and the potential for soybean damage over an extended period." Weed Science

 

 

GMWatch and other concerned groups have had a series of meetings with the UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) on the GMO deregulation bill, which has passed into law. We and our scientific advisor Dr Michael Antoniou have published our latest comments on the bill and the draft proposals for the application and authorisation procedure that GMO developers will go through to get products on the market. These comments have been sent to the FSA for consideration. GMWatch's Claire Robinson said, "We're extremely concerned that both the bill and the accompanying draft guidelines on the application and authorisation procedure fail to make positive provision for complete traceability that includes the consumer – meaning an on-package label alerting people to the fact that this is a GMO. Without a label, the consumer won't know what they are buying and eating." This is of special concern to people with food allergies. GMWatch

 

 

The Gates Foundation is now pouring money into investigative journalism in Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Tanzania, Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa. Investigative journalist Tim Schwab commented, "I guarantee that no recipients will investigate the Gates Foundation." Tim Schwab on Twitter @TimothyWSchwab

 

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