Pipeblock at Kemira in Rotterdam Harbour

A week after the presentation of the international North Sea campaign the Greenpeace ship Beluga and two inflatables stop temporarily the controversial discharges by one of the two fertilizer producers (Kemira and Windmill) in the Rotterdam harbour. Greenpeace activists block one of the two discharge pipelines of Kemira. Kemira discharges 1.2m tonnes of gypsum sludge per annum - this contains great amounts of heavy metals (cadmium and mercury), radioactive materials (radon) and nutrients such as phosphates and nitrates. Kemira and Windmill are the biggest dischargers of cadmium and phosphates in the Netherlands and they pose a direct threat to the environment of the river and North Sea. Greenpeace demands a ban on the discharge of gypsum sludge.