but plainly difficult channel now has YouTube memberships much like my patreon joining will get you early access to videos from 99 pence per month at higher tiers you can also gain access to previous video scripts and have your name in the credits at the end of each video also whilst we're here this video was voted for by my patrons carelessness in industry usually ends up was suffering in its wake from the micro level of poor maintenance of equipment causing injuries to workers all the way to the macro level in the form of environmental pollution the
incident at Bukit Merah falls into the latter category and shows how much damage can be caused by outright disregard for local communities [Music] the 1982 Bukit Merah radioactive pollution incident is similar to the radium girls in that the companies involved categorically denied any wrongdoing even in the face of evidence stating to the contrary and again like the radium girls it would take a long drawn-out court case before any acknowledgement and compensation were offered although the Bukit Merah incident happened in the 1980s in malaysia our story begins in late 1960s Japan in 1969 the Japanese government
changed legislation for the production of rare earth compounds the process was deemed too environmentally detrimental for the country the legislation didn't outright ban the process however it raised the cost of waste disposal via new stricter guidelines to the point where it was financially unviable but change prompted several rare earth production companies to search for other countries with less strict environmental laws and a desire for foreign investment one of these companies looking to move production away from their native Japan was Mitsubishi Kaz i mitsubishi decided on malaysia in 1973 this was due to more lacks regulation
and also good natural deposits of tin an essential component in the refinement of rare earth metals this leads us onto one particular rare earth material it reom is a rare earth element that june a 20th century gained a rapid growth in demand it is used in many mass-produced items and is a key part in the creation of cathode ray tube TV color sets as well as leds superconductors and lasers to get the valuable yttrium monazites a phosphate mineral has to be sourced and this was a by-product of the tin mining process leading Malaysia to become
a preferred choice of Mitsubishi's overseas operations the problem with monazite is that it contains much more than just eat reom with around 24 to 29 percent phosphate 50 to 60 percent rare earth metal oxides 5 to 10 percent form oxide and point 2 to 0.4 percent uranium oxide this means that once each room is extracted varies a lot of waste all a bit not good for the environment especially when mixed with various camera during the refinement process however the last two byproducts for IAM and uranium are radioactive and if incorrectly disposed of can be deadly
for anyone living nearby in 1979 a company called Asian rare earth was set up consisting of the following shareholders Mitsubishi Chemical Industries Limited Bare Minerals the state-owned pilgrims management fund board and other bumiputra businessmen it was society advanced were nuclear waste could be kept for use at a later date for any nuclear aspirations of the perixx state government a sight not far from the new village of Bukit Merah in the state of Perak were selected for atrium extraction operations the investment in the area was embraced by the local government as foreign money would bring with
it new jobs opportunities and increased foreign investment as soon as operations started at the Bukit Merah refinery on the 12th of july 1982 locals started to complain about smells and problems with breathing the waste when a refinery was being stored at the site in open steel barrels with no protection for anyone nearby and open to the elements as stated in the photo essay on the event by the consumers association of penang but the barrels that were used were of the cheapest quality and were second-hand around 6 kilometres away from the refinery in a village called
Pepin a site behind a village had been selected for waste storage pilot government worried about the building of a waste dump nearby and the increase in health issues 6700 residents from Papon and other nearby areas sent a petition letter to a prime minister mahathir mohamad in mid-may 1984 in late May a protest from locals blocked off the entrance to the dump site stopping construction although a statement from the Prime Minister stating that the site was safe another protest blocked off the dump site entrance in June the minister of science technology and Environment backed up the
Prime Minister about the paper and dumped all world a dispute raged on between villages and the government ar e barrels of waste continue to mount up at the Bukit Merah site as a waste piled up the company began dumping the barrels of four iam polluted waste into a field to the rear of the refinery and also into a local pond for up july several more protests took place further stalling the construction efforts and an action committee was by the residents at around the same time sure hobart alam malaysia or friends of the earth malaysia sent
a report to the government informing them of the environmental disaster that was unfolding that sa em had sent their own officials to the ARA site where the barrels had been dumped to take readings of the radioactive pollution the measurements showed an estimated forty three thousand eight hundred milligrams a year 88 times higher than a maximum level permitted by the International Commission on radiological protection the government's problems mounted further still when free IEA officials invited to inspect the dump sites subsequently declared the place unfit for use for a remainder of 1984 various other experts came to
the site each condemning the area unfit for use citing cracked or fin retaining walls to the storage trenches and finding that general engineering work was shoddy with reports from two different regulatory bodies declaring the site unfit for use a cabinet meeting was called by the government to discuss the issue in December the action committee asked Japanese professor Cedillo Ishikawa to measure radiation levels at the open field and pond next to the a re facility the results again came back as dangerously high at its worst point almost 800 times the allowed levels were the interest generated
by the residents and numerous reports and measurements of both the a re site and the proposed dam site Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Moussa hit'em took a personal interest in the situation and visited the dump site after the visit detect called a meeting of his own to find an alternative site for the growing uncovered waste in the field and pond next to the a re refinery a new site proposed at MU Kim Bellinger including range about five kilometers from Peppin however this would not be the end of a problem it wouldn't be until October 1985 but
an injunction sought out by eight residents would be granted against a re it's a cease production until adequate measures were put in place and around 1,500 residents turned up to hear a decision at the court in September 1986 a re claims spending in excess of 2 million malaysian ringgit on repair and upgrade works on the site to bring it up to IEA standards for our 1986 tests were undertaken a number of illegal waste dumping sites around the Bukit Merah area this was done with the assistance of contractor who was told to dump the waste anyway
needless to say they re denied visa claims measurements of around point zero five two point ten milligrams an hour were taken at one site nearly a year and a half after the injunction in February 1986 the Malaysian AEL be granted a licence for a re to resume operations this prompted the start of a 32 month court battle to shut down the plant whilst the court battle raged on several clashes between police and residents took place over the next few years during this time residents blocked the entrance to the new dump site much like they had
done in papen during each hearing day founds of residents walked to the court in Ipoh as a protest was some days resulting in arrests and harassment from the police within the first five years at a refinery being opened of babies born with birth defects increased and eight recorded cases of leukemia were found within the local area population of around eleven thousand for many years before the refinery had started operations no leukemia cases had been reported in 1992 court case was finally over and both sides had to wait until July 1992 for an outcome Jimmy's time
the pollution continued to damage to local environment the Ipoh court found in favor of the residents and ordered a re to shut down within 14 days unsurprisingly the company filed an appeal and the Supreme Court overturned the ruling allowing a re to continue operations one of the reasons was that the court found the partially government-funded a re experts were more believable a number of residents who were plaintiffs in the case traveled to Japan to meet up with Mitsubishi heads to discuss the situation jr. meetings Mae was told that a re appealed without its parent company's
consent the reason this was able to happen was because Mitsubishi didn't have a controlling share of a re giving the company some level of autonomy to operate have a Mitsubishi in the face of growing public opinion and a risk to its reputation pulled the plug on a re in January 1994 even Lodha company had won a legal battle locally however it would be almost 10 years before substantial cleanup efforts would be undertaken as late as 2010 80,000 barrels of waste sat languishing in the Kelly Gang Range dump site the cleanup effort to properly store waste
was estimated to cost 300 million malaysian ringgit the safe storage of the waste meant that a hilltop had to be removed and hollowed out to safely store the waste inside with a clay and soil cap Mitsubishi would quietly finance the cleanup efforts due to having a large stake in the Malaysian economy where it manufactures multiple different types of products as part of the settlement the company donated 164 thousand dollars to local schools however this feels like a drop in the ocean for potential damage that had been caused to the community Mitsubishi still denies the link
between elevated health issues and a local population and the works conducted at the a re site however the Bukit Merah events wouldn't spell DN for rare earth refining in the country when australian company set up in Pahang the opening of the site became a controversial endeavor as old wounds were reopened worrying a whole new set of local residents thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed the video this video was voted for by my patrons if you'd like to become one when you can for one dollar per video that gets you access to votes and
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