Kodaikanal mercury poisoning

In early 2001, public interest groups unearthed a pile of broken glass thermometers with remains of Mercury from an interior of part of the shola forest, which they suspected could have come from the company.

[3] In March, a public protest led by local workers' union and international environmental organisation Greenpeace forced the company to shut down the factory.

[7] This is hotly contested by a book published by Pan MacMillan in 2023, Heavy Metal: How a Global Corporation Poisoned Kodaikanal, authored by veteran journalist-tuned-public policy leader Ameer Shahul.

[9] Greenpeace campaigner Ameer Shahul led the public affairs groups and workers collaboration in forcing the Company to collect 290 tonnes of dumped mercury waste from the shola forest and send back to the United States for recycling in 2003.

[14] A series of scientific studies have also been carried out by Governmental and non-governmental organisations to determine the extent of damage caused to the environment and to the people who were exposed to mercury in the factory.

[19] With these demands, public interest groups led by Greenpeace campaign head Shahul spooked the annual general body meeting of Hindustan Unilever in 2004.

[20] Consequently, the company began working with the regulatory body Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB) to remediate the soil, de-contaminate and scrap the thermometer-making equipment at the Kodaikanal site.

[21] Public interest groups contested the soil clean-up criteria and alleged that TNPCB is helping Unilever clean up to lower standards to cut costs.

In February 2006, a group of ex-employees of the factory approached the Madras High Court seeking directions for conducting a fresh health survey and providing economic rehabilitation.

In March 2016, Hindustan Unilever entered into an out of court settlement with its ex-employees to provide "undisclosed" ex-gratia payment, in addition to long-term health and well-being benefits, to 511 of its former workers of the thermometer factory who were exposed to toxic mercury vapour.