Factory owner and staff arrested for making bricks for homes with toxic waste

Three suspects in Wuhe county, Anhui were arrested for using toxic industrial waste to produce bricks for housing, the paper.cn reports.

The suspects were the owner and staff of a medium-sized brick factory, where provincial environmental inspectors found late last month several hundred tonnes of chemical waste pilling up in its dirt storage yard.

Laboratory analysis showed that this dirt-like material contained harmful chemicals like waste oil and paint, as well as high levels of heavy metals including cadmium and nickel.

The suspects said their brick factory had been affected by a local shortage of clay. But in Lishui city, Zhejiang some factories were selling at very low prices or even giving away large amounts of dirt contaminated by industrial pollutants.

Transported across the province by cargo trucks, the waste dirt was quietly dumped in the brick plant’s open field, which is next to a fish pond and rice paddies.