Alumina Factory in Gardanne, France60

There is a bauxite factory in Gardanne in southern France. The factory has been producing a seemingly endless stream of red sludge since the end of the 19th century. This sludge comes from the aluminium industry. Bauxite, aluminium ore, was discovered in the Baux-de-Provence region in 1821. The Bayer process, developed in Gardanne in 1893, consists of dissolving the alumina with soda, which generates a large quantity of toxic residues with a strong red colour: the red sludge.
Arsenic, uranium 238, thorium 232, mercury, cadmium, titanium, soda, lead, chromium, vanadium, nickel: these are some of the components of the "red sludge", which is dumped every day in the Mediterranean Sea with hundreds of tons. An anagelgd pipeline in 1966, the waste discharges seven kilometers from the coast, in the heart of an area remarkable for its biodiversity; in April 2012 it was declared National Park Calanques. In half a century, almost thirty million tonnes were discharged at a depth of two hundred and fifty metres. The toxic elements spread across the Gulf of Fos to the Bay of Toulon and mix with the polluted water from the Rhone.

The factory is now owned by Alteo, the world's largest producer of "specialty aluminas", which exports more than 1,200 tonnes of finished products every day, mainly used for the production of flat LCD screens and touch screens. In a region where work is becoming scarcer, Alteo represents almost 400 direct jobs and more than 1000 indirect jobs.