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DIRTYDIESEL

RETURN TO SENDER

Swiss commodity trader Trafigura is selling toxic fuel to Africa – with dramatic consequences for people’s health. Together, we are taking on the polluters by returning a container filled with toxic air from Ghana to the sender.

Swiss commodity trading companies, like market leader Trafigura, dominate the dirty business with “African quality” fuels for West Africa. They systematically benefit from weak standards in African countries by selling fuels that could never be sold in Europe. Swiss companies are operating within the law because fuel standards in these African countries are so lax. Nevertheless, their business model is illegitimate because it blithely ignores the health of people living in these countries.

Public Eye

Civil society organizations from Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, and the Ivory Coast have taken up the fight for strong fuel standards. They are joining us in calling on Swiss companies to stop flooding their countries with poisonous fuel and to start producing gasoline and diesel with the lowest possible content of toxic substances – for Africa as for the rest of the world.Join us in putting an end to this unjust business model – sign the petition now!

The facts

Even today, air pollution in African cities is a serious problem. Most of the damaging particulate matter in the air is generated by cars. Although in relative terms, Africa has fewer cars than Europe, toxic emissions are higher because the fuel contains vastly more sulphur that causes particulate matter.

High levels of air pollution have serious consequences for human health. Respiratory diseases are one of the main reasons why people in Accra, Ghana, are hospitalized. This is the case with Kate Onike, who suffers from severe asthma attacs (picture). Unless the sulphur content of fuels in Africa is lowered dramatically, an estimated 31,000 people will die prematurely by 2030. That’s three times the number of deaths caused by traffic-related air pollution in Europe, the US and Japan combined. Countless people will suffer from cardio-vascular diseases and cancer.

Fuel standards in most parts of Africa are much weaker than in Europe. Public Eye collected samples from eight countries to find out how much sulphur the locally available diesel actually contains. The result is shocking: the sulphur content was up to 378 times higher than the European limit. We also found other health damaging substances such as benzene or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in concentrations not permitted in Europe.

Swiss commodity trading companies, like market leader Trafigura, dominate the dirty business with toxic fuels for Africa. They supply the fuels, distribute and sell them locally through their own network of petrol stations and even produce the dirty mixtures themselves. They have no interest in improved regulatory standards because their profit margins depend on their ability to exploit weak African standards to the fullest.

While the business model of the Swiss commodity traders is legal, their actions are clearly illegitimate and violate human rights because their profit comes at the expense of the health of millions of Africans. Africans have the same right to health as the rest of us.

The scandal

Our report “Dirty Diesel(PDF,8.8 MB)“ reveals for the first time how commodity trading companies systematically exploit the lax African standards to optimize their profit margins with toxic fuels – at the expense of the health of millions of Africans. The report also shows that Swiss commodity trading companies dominate the dirty business with “African quality” fuels for West Africa.

Public Eye

Would the CEOs of Swiss commodity trading companies produce such toxic fuels if they could be sold where they themselves live and breathe? Hardly. Are African lungs worth less than theirs? No, they’re not!

These companies should start behaving like they claim they do in their corporate social responsibility statements. To remind them, we decided to ship a container full of dirty air from Ghana’s capital Accra back to the sender: To Trafigura, the company in Geneva that aspires “to become acknowledged sector leaders in the way we manage corporate responsibility.“

End the dirty fuel business now.

Sign the petition!

Your signature will help persuade Trafigura to stop producing and selling “African quality“. The time is now. Thank you!

To get the whole picture visit www.dirtydiesel.ch

Background

Thereport(PDF,8.8 MB)by Public Eye reveals how commodity trading companies optimize their profit margins with toxic fuels – to the detriment of the health of people in Africa.

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