Mexico Will Close Plant Getting U.S. Waste Ink

Mexican authorities will shut down, at least temporarily, a controversial Tijuana plant that they say has been illegally processing large amounts of waste printers ink from California newspapers and other firms for use in producing asphalt, a Mexican health official said Thursday.

Dr. Porfirio Garcia Gonzalez, chief of the Tijuana regional office of the federal Health Secretariat, said a decision was made to close the plant after health inspectors visited the facility on Thursday and determined it was operating without a license.

The plant, operated by a firm called Industrias de Monte Cristo S.A., will be officially closed today, Garcia said. Officials of Industrias de Monte Cristo could not be reached for comment and those who live near the plant say it has been closed for production for about two weeks.

“There is no doubt that this plant was operating illegally,” Garcia said. “Unfortunately, many of these plants may be operating clandestinely, and it may be months or years before we discover it.”

Garcia said health officials intend to take samples of materials from the asphalt plant and examine them for toxicity. He said his office will then decide whether to close the plant permanently or allow it to reopen. The owners would probably be subject to fines and possible criminal charges for operating a plant without a license, Garcia said.

The plant received the ink from a licensed American waste hauler, Waste Disposal Systems of San Pedro, which contracted with Southern California newspapers and printing firms to remove the waste ink.

Authorities in the United States have expressed fear that U.S. firms may be shipping their wastes to Mexico, where they may be illegally dumped, as an alternative to rising disposal costs in the United States.

“It probably is a cost-effective outlet, at the moment, to move the stuff across the border,” Jeffrey Zelikson, deputy director of the toxics and waste management division of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office in San Francisco, said Thursday. “I think cost is probably the driving force.”

Meanwhile, officials at some of the newspapers, publishers, and ink manufacturers who have contracted with Waste Disposal Systems to remove their waste ink said Thursday that they had decided to withhold further shipments until they received more information about the plant.

Ample Storage Space

Most said they had sufficient storage space to avoid shipments in the coming weeks. But others said they believe the shipments were legal and have no plans to change.

“Right now, everything’s on hold because of the articles that have been written until we can find out just what’s going on,” said Don Phillips of Flint Ink, a large ink manufacturer based in Detroit with a Southern California plant that sent waste to Mexico.

But Mell Kilpatrick, production manager for the Orange County Register, said, “If it’s not illegal, why should we change? My position, as far as we were concerned, is it’s perfectly legal to begin with, so I really don’t have an answer.”

Officials at Times Mirror Press, a subsidiary of Times Mirror Co. that publishes telephone directories, had a similar reaction.

“They (Times Mirror Press) say they are, as far as they know, in full compliance with what has been asked, and that they have been given a clean bill by the (state) Department of Health Services,” said Anthony Hatch, director of corporate public affairs for Times Mirror Co. Times Mirror Co. also publishes the Los Angeles Times, but The Times does not dispose of waste ink with Waste Disposal Systems.

Legislator’s Accusation

On Tuesday, Assemblyman Steve Peace (D-Chula Vista) accused 11 companies of improperly shipping waste ink to Mexico to be recycled into asphalt. Peace said the companies, which had turned the ink over to Waste Disposal Systems, had not filed all the required paper work with federal and state environmental authorities.

State Health Department officials disputed that on Thursday, saying that Peace may have misinterpreted the legal requirements on the companies.

Company officials also have said they believe they filed most or all of the necessary paper work.

Under California law, waste ink is hazardous if it contains certain highly flammable solvents, according to Richard Neergaard, manager for environmental services at the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. The degree of hazard varies from one newspaper to another, depending on how the newspaper handles its waste and the amounts of solvents and washes used in cleaning presses.

But even when waste ink is not hazardous, ordinary landfills are often unwilling to accept it, Neergaard said. For that reason, he said, many newspapers end up turning their waste over to a hazardous-waste hauler for special disposal simply because they have no alternative.

Operation Stops

On Thursday, Gary Gaston, president of Waste Disposal Systems, said the waste-ink portion of his hazardous-waste hauling operations have “come to a grinding halt” until he receives documentation from the Mexican firm proving that it is licensed and legitimate. Gaston said he was confident that he would have the information by early next week and would begin shipments then.

“I really feel that this whole thing will be cleared up by the first of next week, and we can get back to business,” Gaston said. “But right now, we’ll just sit and wait.”

The exact amount of ink received by Industrias is not known, but public documents filed with the California Department of Health Services suggest that the volumes were large. Documents show that newspapers and other firms were making regular shipments ranging from 1,200 to 37,000 gallons.

Representatives of Industrias de Monte Cristo did not return a number of telephone messages. Mexican authorities could not say how long the facility had been in operation, but the U.S. hauler says he has been providing waste ink to the Tijuana plant for at least a year.