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Sydney (AFP) Nov 30, 2010 Australian explosives company Orica Tuesday defended plans to ship tonnes of toxic chemical waste to Denmark for disposal, despite fears it poses an environmental risk. Danish environmental authorities accepted a request to take the hazardous by-product Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) -- stockpiled for decades in Sydney -- in June, and it is due to leave the city's Botany Bay port soon. "It hasn't left yet but we've been advised by security agencies not to divulge the exact shipping date," Orica spokesman John Fetter told AFP. Fetter said there was no facility in Australia to destroy the chemicals, a by-product of solvents made by the company now known as Orica between 1964 and 1991, and little likelihood of one being built. "So this is a single stockpile which requires destruction and it would be environmentally unsound... to build a plant here especially to destroy waste which is a relatively small stockpile and then dismantle the plant when there are existing plants in Europe which... can treat it," Fetter said. When Australia gave a green light to the export of 6,100 tonnes of Orica's toxic chemicals in August, it acknowledged there was no adequate domestic facility to destroy the waste and that it would take many years and significant cost to build one. The government also said that state-of-the-art technology would be used to transport and destroy the chemicals at a Danish incinerator. However, the Australian Toxic Network said Australia should deal with the waste at home, adding that shipping highly dangerous chemicals around the world posed the risk of environmental disaster. "It's not leakage that we are worried about with the shipping but rather accidents and fire," spokeswoman Mariann Lloyd-Smith said. "Although the likelihood my be small, the impact would be huge hence we like many other NGOs (non-governmental organisations) believe the risks of transporting toxic waste over such a long distance is too great." Orica, which has some 16,000 tonnes of various waste at its Botany site, said the ship that would carry some of the toxic load from Australia to an incinerator in Denmark had been approved by both governments. "We chose a vessel which is only three years old and which we believe is extremely well-maintained," Fetter said.
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