Rejets toxiques en Méditerranée: usine Alteo mise en examen

Buzz Plus

Après avoir rejeté des millions de tonnes de "boues rouge" toxiques, l'usine Alteo de Gardanne (Bouches-du-Rhône), leader mondial de l'alumine de spécialité, aurait continué à polluer le Parc national des Calanques avec ses rejets liquides, des faits lui valant désormais une mise en examen. - L'info en continu  https://buzzplus.fr/ Infos, news & actualités - L'information internationale en direct.

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00:00 After having rejected millions of tonnes of "toxic red mud",

00:03 the Alteo plant in Gardane,

00:05 Bouches-du-Rhône,

00:06 world leader in specialised aluminium,

00:08 would have continued to pollute the Calanques National Park

00:11 with its liquid waste,

00:13 facts now worth a thorough examination.

00:15 Four years after the opening of a judicial report

00:19 for "endangering the life of others",

00:21 the Marseille Parquet estimated that enough elements

00:24 had been testing the arguments advanced for years

00:26 by the Riverains and Ecologists Association,

00:28 which denounced the pollution caused by the company.

00:31 The plant continued to dump its waste

00:34 without respecting the limits of emissions assigned,

00:37 and indicated to the AFP the Marseille Parquet,

00:40 confirming this examination,

00:42 on 17 October,

00:44 which was revealed by Le Quotidien Le Monde on Friday.

00:46 Alteo is suspected of having, in Gardane and Cassis,

00:49 between 1 January 2016 and 31 December 2021,

00:53 let its waters flow into the sea,

00:55 within the territorial sea limit,

00:57 directly or indirectly,

00:59 one or more substances whose action or reactions

01:01 have even temporarily caused harmful effects on health

01:04 or damage to the flora or fauna,

01:07 said the Marseille prosecutor, Nicolas Besson.

01:10 Several prefectural arrests authorising the company

01:14 to temporarily drop off at the toxicity threshold

01:16 for its liquid waste at sea

01:17 had however been made in 2015,

01:20 2016,

01:21 2018 and 2020,

01:22 notably to save several hundred jobs.

01:26 Despite the fact that this right to pollute Alteo

01:28 would not have been included in the clauses,

01:29 these waste flows in the Mediterranean

01:31 would still present concentration rates

01:33 too high on one or more parameters

01:35 aimed at arresting them,

01:37 among which heavy metals such as mercury,

01:39 zinc,

01:40 lithium,

01:41 copper or arsenic.

01:43 According to Le Monde,

01:45 these excesses would have in particular concerned

01:47 mercury and arsenic,

01:48 with a total of 64 violations

01:50 observed between 2016 and 2021.

01:53 In 2020,

01:54 the company was congratulated on having achieved

01:57 its water quality objectives

01:59 by the end of August 30, 2020,

02:01 in line with the prefectural arrest.

02:03 Environmental scandal

02:06 Under the pressure of environmentalists

02:08 and following a prefectural arrest in late 2015,

02:12 the plant had already had to stop

02:13 dropping off its solid bulk of bauxite,

02:16 the raw material of aluminum,

02:18 nicknamed "red mud".

02:19 In 50 years,

02:21 the plant had rejected at least 20 million tonnes

02:23 loaded with arsenic and cadmium.

02:25 Since then,

02:27 Alteo has only rejected a liquid waste flow,

02:29 at the origin of this examination.

02:31 The solid waste was stored in a planter

02:34 in Bouc-Bélaire,

02:35 near Gardanne.

02:37 But nearly a dozen plaintiffs,

02:39 including the mayor of Gardanne,

02:41 environmental associations

02:43 and the plant's bankers,

02:44 had filed a complaint in 2018

02:46 for "endangering others",

02:48 evoking a health and environmental scandal.

02:51 Their wish?

02:52 To stop Alteo's rejections

02:55 and to sentence it for past pollution.

02:57 Alteo took action to examine the plant.

03:00 Since its purchase in 2021,

03:03 the plant has undergone a major industrial transformation,

03:06 with the plant's refining stopped.

03:09 In addition,

03:10 we are actively pursuing our efforts

03:12 to reduce our environmental footprint,

03:15 according to the AFP's new president,

03:18 Alain Moscatello.

03:19 We have inherited a passive

03:22 and we are striving to do better,

03:23 to do well,

03:24 he added.

03:25 After having long belonged

03:28 to the French group Pechiné until 2003,

03:30 Alteo has regularly changed owners since,

03:33 bought by the giant Australian mini Anglo Rio Tinto

03:36 then by the American investment fund HIG in 2012,

03:40 it has belonged since 2021,

03:42 after its placement in judicial re-election

03:44 due to a drop in orders

03:45 and a crisis in the world aluminum market,

03:48 to the group of Logistics United Mining Supply,

03:51 UMS,

03:52 set up in Guinea.

03:52 Created in 1894,

03:56 Alteo is the oldest aluminum factory in the world.

03:58 It imports its raw materials mainly from Guinea

04:02 to manufacture white aluminum,

04:04 used in the armament,

04:05 the automotive industry

04:06 or the manufacture of mobile phones.

04:08 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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