Notice #4: Toxic wastes in the Ivory Coast and fires of repetition in France

Mr. Claude Dauphin, held in the Ivory Coast under investigation of toxic discharges from the Probo Koala, is a leader of Trafigura (see preceding notice). He is known as a follower of Marc Rich (see article “The Rich Boys” in Business Week’s July 18, 2005 edition and the Robin des Bois’s press release “My pollueur is Rich” from January 29, 2003). He began his international career in London as a broker of oil products. Under his name, he developed the GDE—Guy Dauphin Environment—a familial society for the recycling of metals and batteries. The society’s historic site is based near Caen, Normandy, and its parent company is the Ecore group.

Ecore, subsidiary of Trafigura, is today recognized as a champion of sustainable development and recycling: ferrous and non-ferrous metals, paper and cardboard, plastics, batteries. Ecore is based in France, Hungary, Romania, and Turkey. In France, Ecore’s activities are represented by GDE, except that Ecore France was registered at Bobigny’s Registry of Commerce in April 2006. Ecore is the parent company of GDE. GDE sites proliferate throughout the national territory. They are at the moment specialized in the grinding of VHU, the blades of certain equipment and electronic wastes no longer in use. A number of GDE sites have been casualties of fires—Rocquancourt (14), Limay (78), Cesson-Sevigné (35), and Damigny (61) this summer—and chronic explosions sparked by fumes and toxic plumes (see the press release about the Yvelines prefecture from July 28, 2006).

Malco belongs to the Ecore group. Malco is a French law society specializing in negotiations of non-iron metals. It has expanded in Western European countries and in China. Its trade is the reselling of recovered copper. The question to ask is whether or not this copper is always cleaned and decontaminated when it comes from pyralene transformers. The director of Malco is the president of the non-ferrous metal division of the International Bureau of Recycling—BIR. Malco has warehouses or recycling yards in Marseille, Rotterdam, and near Paris.

See also:
Trafigura captured by Mercaptan and Hydrogen Sulphide. July 23, 2010.
Trafigura lies - Probo Koala and Trafigura's trial in Amsterdam. June 28, 2010
Probo Koala, the book. May 2010
Toxic wastes in Abidjan. Wastes returning to Europe, Nov 7, 2006
Ivory Coast Waste: Return to Sender, September 29, 2006.
Notice #3: French businessmen stuck in Abidjan’s toxic mixture, September 14, 2006.
Call for a waste charter, September 12, 2006.
Notice #2: Ivory Coast Pollution, September 12, 2006
Notice #1: Pollution in the Ivory Coast, September 10, 2006
For the whole story (only available in French):
http://www.robindesbois.org/dossiers/probo_koala/page_probo_koala.html