TL: Alcoa Profile -Greenwash Snapshot #14: A cas study in the environmental and social costs of aluminum production. SO: Greenpeace (GP) DT: 1992 Keywords: toxics metals aluminum business us profiles costs gp greenpeace reports greenwash / _____________________________________________________ Aluminum Company of America Chairman & CEO: Paul O'Neill salary: $824,847 HQ: 1501 Alcoa Bldg., Pittsburgh, PA 15219 tel.: 412-553-4545 fax: 412-553-4498 Major business: aluminum for packaging, transportation, building, and industrial markets. Major subsidiaries: Alcoa of Australia; Alcoa Aluminio SA(Brazil) Alcoa has 159 operating and sales locations in 22 countries. Alcoa is a member of the BCSD. ______________________________________________________ "In the words of one environmentalist within our ranks: 'If it moves, it ought to be aluminum.'" --from Alcoa's 1991 Annual Report 1 A glossy photograph of a car adorns the cover of Alcoa's 1991 Annual Report. Inside, the company devotes seventeen pages to more photos and text which advertise the ways greater aluminum use in cars will save energy, conserve natural resources, and reduce air pollution. As the world's largest aluminum producer, Alcoa has a clear economic motive in depicting aluminum as a savior of the environment. However, to the extent that Alcoa's overriding emphasis on aluminum in cars perpetuates and increases the world's dependency on the motor vehicle industry, it does more harm than good. Cars, trucks, and commercial vehicles are the biggest sources of global atmospheric pollution, consume one- third of the world's oil, and require vast amounts of energy to manufacture (see Greenwash Snapshot #7--GM). 2 In countries like Brazil, the aluminum industry's tremendous energy demands have led to the construction of habitat-destroying hydroelectric dams and have added to an ongoing fiscal crisis in the country's electricity sector. Alcoa's aluminum operations have also forced the eviction of 20,000 people on Brazil's Sao Luis Island to make way for plant expansion and contributed to PCB contamination of rivers near a Mohawk Nation reservation in North America. Environmental and Economic Costs of Aluminum Production The production of aluminum itself carries a high ecological and economic price. At every stage, aluminum production degrades and pollutes the environment. The strip-mining of bauxite, aluminum's principal ore, probably destroys more of the earth's surface area than the mining of any other metal. The extraction of aluminum from bauxite generates an equivalent amount of toxic waste called "red mud" that is rich in metallic oxides and other contaminants. This toxic mud is frequently left near mines which inevitably leads to surface and groundwater contamination. Aluminum smelters are an important source of numerous air pollutants including aluminum dust, fluoride dust and gases, hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide, which contributes significantly to acid rain. 3 Alcoa claims that if all cars in the US used aluminum for parts that are currently available, fuel savings would reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions -- the main cause of global warming --by 98 million tons. 4 Recently, however, a researcher has discovered that primary aluminum smelting is the only known major human-caused source of CFC-14 and CFC-116, perhaps the most potent greenhouse gases being emitted in large amounts. Scientists estimate that these gases will stay in the atmosphere for 10,000 years and are equal to the greenhouse contribution of between 15 and 20 tons of carbon dioxide per ton of aluminum. This means that in 1990, when 18 million tons of aluminum were produced, the aluminum industry emitted the equivalent of between 270 and 360 million tons of carbon dioxide. Future reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will include CFC-14 and CFC-116 from aluminum smelting in their assessments of major greenhouse gases. 5 Aluminum production is also one of the more energy-intensive industries on earth. 6 Each year, it consumes at least 250 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, or about 1% of global energy supply. In 1990, the world aluminum industry needed almost as much electricity just to convert alumina into aluminum as was used in all of Africa. 7 Because of this, many countries give generous energy subsidies to aluminum producers which allow the companies to pay less for power than other consumers. 8 These subsidies often obscure the reality of the economic benefits generated by the aluminum industry. In Brazil, for example, the amount of energy used by aluminum smelting doubled between 1982 and 1988, when the industry consumed 12% of the country's electricity. Nearly all the increase went to produce aluminum for export. Although such exports provide foreign exchange, a government research institute in Brazil calculates that subsidies to aluminum producers comprise 60% of the metal's export value. 9 In 1989 alone, this amounted to some $600 million. 10 Energy prices in Latin America, Africa, and Asia are one-half to one-seventh those in the US or Western Europe. This disparity has encouraged transnational aluminum corporations to relocate their smelting and manufacturing operations to less industrialized regions. 11 The less industrialized world's share of global production of aluminum has doubled consistently every ten years since 1960 and is expected to reach nearly 50% by the year 2000. Alcoa now has more operations for primary aluminum and fabricated aluminum products in Brazil(nine) and Mexico(six) than any other country except the US(which has 26). 12 This shift can wreak economic havoc with electric power systems in less industrialized countries. Aluminum production has caused a dramatic increase in Brazil's energy use. This in turn has contributed to an ongoing fiscal crisis in the country's electricity sector. 13 And in some areas, the consequences of this dirty industry movement have been truly devastating. Aluminum and Hydropower: Alcoa and Destruction in Brazil Approximately 40% of the electricity used by the aluminum industry comes from hydropower -- enormous dam projects that in the Americas and Africa have been ruinous to the environment and have dislocated thousands of people. In some cases the dams themselves were built for the vast electricity needs of aluminum smelters. 14 Built by Brazil's state-run power company, the huge Tucurui dam on the Tocantins River in the Amazon basin exemplifies the harm such projects can cause. About one-third of the dam's electricity goes to aluminum producers, among them the world's 2nd largest combined aluminum refinery and smelter on Sao Luis Island owned by Consorcio Alumar, a joint venture in which Alcoa is the majority partner (Shell-Billiton is the other partner). The dam's construction flooded 243,000 hectares, including six towns and two Indian reserves. It has threatened the habitat and existence of many plants and animals -- especially marine animals such as fish, dolphins, turtles, manatees, and caimans -- through contamination and deforestation. 15 The decline in fishstocks due to the hydroelectric project jeopardized the livelihood of nearby fishing villages. Malaria has increased in the area since the dam was built. 16 At least 20,000 people were evicted from their homes on the island of Sao Luis to make way for Alumar's production facilities as well as a railway station. 17 In addition to the railway, roads and power transmission lines pass through or near twelve of the region's tribal communities, many of which now compete for food and land with a growing number of peasant squatters attracted by the transportation network. 18 ***************************************************************** * Alcoa is the devil itself, and I'm very afraid of them, equally from the pollution that comes from below as well as that from above. Alcoa produces poison which enter the air and the ground. When there's a lot of smoke, if there's no rain, it falls with the dew. So, it's destroying everything....Their waste pond...is close to where we work. The river...was affected by their waste. Today it's just a trickle. Their waste flowed down and killed everything. The water is polluted and we have to drink well water. - -Livia Silves Valdes, resident of the Igarau community, which resisted relocation by Alcoa, 1987 19 Alumar is a plant that operates in a rigorously clean manner. The residue of the bauxite refining are placed in impermeable bags within the pond....The ponds are a masterpiece of engineering.... --Jose De Jesus Brito, Alumar spokesperson 1987 20 ***************************************************************** ** Alcoa, Aluminum, and Hazardous Waste Alcoa has also poisoned the North American environment, via their aluminum smelting and fabrication plant in Massena, New York. The contamination is worst near the St. Regis Mohawk Nation Reservation -- which the Mohawks call Akwasasne -- along the St. Lawrence River. In 1989, the EPA declared rivers near the reservation a hazardous waste site. The EPA ordered Alcoa and Reynolds Metals Company to clean up large amounts of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which they had discharged for many years. 21 (In 1990, the EPA also issued an order to General Motors to clean up PCBs in the Massena area.) The EPA move followed a state Health Department study which showed that PCBs were accumulating in the breast milk of Mohawk mothers. In addition, according to a local environmentalist, the PCBs "effectively destroyed the fishing industry" and contaminated farmland on the reservation, while high fluoride levels caused bone deterioration in cattle. 22 Pollution from these PCBs and other hazardous chemicals is responsible for the disease, premature death, and declining birth rate in the St. Lawrence's white beluga whale population. One expert calls the belugas "probably the most contaminated mammal in the St. Lawrence River ecosystem." 23 In 1991, Alcoa agreed to pay a criminal fine of $3.75 million and a civil penalty for $3.75 million for a number of NY state environmental offenses at its Massena plant. 24 Alcoa was charged with improperly handling PCBs and with the illegal disposal of acidic compounds used in an aluminum-cleaning process. Since 1983, Alcoa had poured these compounds down a sewer hole where they mixed with wastewater that drained into a tributary of the St. Lawrence. The criminal fine is the largest amount ever levied for a hazardous waste violation in the US. ***************************************************************** *********** "If I didn't believe my children and grandchildren will be able to swim in the St. Lawrence then there is no reason for me to live." --Henry Lickers, Director, St. Regis Environmental Division 25 "Our traditions survive in doing things the Mohawk way. Our whole ceremonial life, our cosmological life, is based on nature. Without that river, we lose Akwesasne." --Katsi Cook, Mohawk midwife 26 ***************************************************************** *************** In 1989, two Alcoa alumina plants and one smelter were among the top ten sources of hazardous toxic pollution in the National Wildlife Federation's "Toxic 500" list; one plant, at Point Comfort, Texas, was ranked #1. Alcoa claimed that under EPA rule changes, none of the plants would appear on the list. 27 The Limits of Aluminum Recycling In the US, almost one-third of aluminum is used in packaging, mostly beverage cans. Over half of aluminum cans in the US are recycled, and Alcoa, the leading supplier of aluminum sheet for beverage cans, has aggressively publicized its recycling efforts for these containers. 28 Nonetheless, the quantity of aluminum thrown away in the form of beverage cans in the US is greater than the total use of aluminum by all but seven nations. 29 Morever, even 100% recycling of aluminum cans would not be efficient compared to some alternatives, such as refillable containers. 30 The primary goal of recycling -- to reduce demand for raw material -- is not promoted by Alcoa, nor is aluminum recycling leading toward this goal (primary aluminum production continues to increase). In itself, more recycling will not resolve the environmental and economic problems associated with aluminum production. With per capita aluminum consumption in the U.S. at around 42 pounds annually (as opposed to under 2 pounds in China and Mexico, for example), Alcoa and other aluminum producers should focus their efforts on the fundamental goal of reducing production and consumption of this environmentally dangerous metal, rather than on greenwashing the use of even more aluminum. For more information contact Jed Greer(author) or Kenny Bruno, Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, 212-941-0994, extension 205 or 209. Notes 1. Alcoa 1991 Special Report: Aluminum and the Future of Transportation. 2. The Environmental Impact of the Car, Greenpeace International, Amsterdam, 1991, especially pp. 5-6. 3. John Young, "Aluminum's Real Tab," in World Watch, March-April 1992, p. 27 and John Young, "Mining the Earth," in State of the World 1992 A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society, New York, 1992, p. 107. See also "Fear surrounds RTZ aluminum plant," in Labor Research, June 1986, p. 15. 4. Alcoa 1991, p. 24. 5. Dean Abrahamson, "Sources and Sinks of Greenhouse Gases in Sweden: A Case Study," in Ambio, vol. 21, no. 2, April 1992, and "Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Aluminum Production An IPCC Oversight," submitted to Nature, 30 December 1991. Also Greenpeace conversation with author. 6. See Young, "Aluminum's Real Tab," p. 28, "Mining the Earth," pp. 109-110, and also United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations(UNCTC), Climate Change and Transnational Corporations Analysis and Trends, Environment Series No. 2, New York, 1992, pp. 76-77. 7. Young, "Aluminum's Real Tab," p. 26. 8. ibid, pp. 29-30, and UNCTC, p. 78. 9. ibid, Young, p. 32. 10. According to Mining Journal, 30 March 1990, p. 259, Brazil earned $1 billion from aluminum exports in 1989. 11. Rhys Jenkins, Transnational Corporations and Uneven Development, Methuen, London, 1987, pp. 108-109. 12. Alcoa 1991, p. 5. 13. Young, "Aluminum's Real Tab," p. 32. 14. ibid, p. 26, and UNCTC, p. 77. 15. ibid, Young, p. 31, and UNCTC, p. 78. 16. UNCTC, p. 78. 17. Dave Treece, "Brutality and Brazil: The Human Cost of Cheap Steel," in Cultural Survival Quarterly, 13(1), p. 30. 18. ibid, p. 30. 19. From film "AMAZONIA: Voices From the Rainforest," Amazonia Films, PO Box 77438, San Francisco, CA 94107. 20. ibid. 21. "EPA Reportedly to Declare Mohawk Reservation Rivers Hazardous Waste Sites St. Regis Indian Reservation," UPI, 5 October 1989. 22. Tom Spears, "Sickly St. Lawrence Gets Daily Dose of Poison; Wasting a River," in the Ottawa Citizen, 8 April 1990. See also Mike Thompson, "Pollution remains a big problem," The Standard Freeholder, 12 Novemebr 1987. 23. Biologist Daniel Green of the Montreal-based Society to Conquer Pollution, in conversation with Jed Greer, Greenpeace International. Also "St. Lawrence River Kills Beluga Whales," in The New York Times. 24. Elizabeth Edwardsen, "Alcoa Pollution," AP, 11 July 1991. 25. Quoted in Mike Thompson, "Pollution remains a big problem," in The Standard Freeholder, 12 November 1987. 26. Quoted in "Mohawk: Toxic Waste, Contaminated Animals Threaten the Culture," in The Los Angeles Times, 24 January 1988. 27. "Firms Contest Toxic Ratings," AP, 14 August 1989. 28. "Alcoa Sponsors Recycling Ads," American Metal Market, 6 November 1990. 29. Young, "Aluminum's Real Tab," p. 33. 30. ibid, p. 33.