Nearly three decades after the tragic industrial disaster in Bhopal, India that took some fifteen thousand lives nearly instantly and whose awful legacy is still causing grave harm, a German developmental and aid organization (GIZ, Gesellschaft fรผr Zusammenarbeit) that executes projects on behalf of the federal government has been awarded the contract to remove three hundred fifty tons of toxic solid waste, five jumbo plane loads, stored in warehouses on site to northern Germany for safe incineration. The toxic waste being removed is not directly related to the gas leak from pesticide production that poisoned people living in nearby slums but rather the cumulative impact of years of manufacturing under atrocious, predatory conditions with no party or successor accepting responsibility for the environmental disaster and toll on human lives. The race to the bottom certainly did not end with this catastrophe nor limit it to developing countries with laxer oversight and stewardship and superfund sites punctuate the map of the United States and there are many other shipwrecks of industry all over the world, but Bhopal is far from the silent memorial that the hushing reproval and blamelessness of chemical concerns portray, and has become, though still a center for factories, a model city for its ecological practices and research.
For some, Germany’s logistical plan does raise some questions—like why they will fly dangerous materials around the world instead of carrying out the disposal and neutralization in India—and while I believe there are compelling and honest reasons for doing so, one should not be dissuaded from dissecting controversy and mismanagement, and perhaps not only uncover some more dirty little secrets but also challenge the not-in-my-backyard mentality (,,bei-mir-aber-nicht!” Reaktion) that estranges consumers from the consequences of such products. 
