Lying in the heart of a poor residential neighborhood in the Caribbean city of Coatzacoalcos, a patch of sand has become the latest focus for concern about illegal toxic-waste dumping in Mexico. This spot where children from the Santa Rosa neighborhood used to play soccer is contaminated with concentrations 167 times the legal limit of hexachlorobenzene, a toxic ingredient of the industrial plastic PVC, according to tests Greenpeace Mexico released last month. Still, no one knows what is actually buried there. Marcela Carranza, a local doctor who provided Greenpeace with the test soil sample, fears even higher concentrations of the chemical lie below the surface. How hexachlorobenzene came to be there has yet to be established. However, campaigners and local citizens are pointing the... [Log in to read more]
