The Invisible Menace: New Zealand's problematic relationship with methyl bromide

Methyl Bromide is a toxic gas that is used in minuscule amounts to fumigate imported primary products. The highly-noxious gas is also used to treat the millions of tonnes of timber and wood products that arrive and depart through New Zealand’s ports.

Burgeoning use

All told, in 2016, New Zealand consumed 540 tonnes of the fumigant, up from less than 100 tonnes in the 2000s. In raw numbers, we are number five in the world in terms of use of the gas. Seeing that other countries that still utilise this toxin are much larger than New Zealand, we are unsurprisingly the largest per capita offender in terms of our use of this poisonous substance. The burgeoning timber trade has meant that our use of methyl bromide has increased along with it.

Cans of Methyl Bromide

Health effects

An invisible menace, methyl bromide has no colour or odour detectable by humans. Its presence must be detected with specialist equipment. In a 2012 study by the National Cancer Institute in the United States, researchers found a link between exposure to methyl bromide and increased risk of stomach cancer. Closer to home, our own Ministry of Primary Industries has recognised the dangers of methyl bromide in high concentrations, noting that such exposure to methyl bromide can result in “death through pulmonary injury”. The substance is also suspected to be the cause of motor neuron disease and cancers among dock workers in Nelson who have handled timber exports.

Status of Methyl Bromide

Currently, methyl bromide is permitted for commercial use in New Zealand. Several of our largest timber export customers, such as India and China, insist that we use the gas to treat our products before shipping products to their countries. We have already missed a deadline under the Montreal Protocol to eliminate its use in quarantine operations before 2005. All signatories to the Montreal Protocol agreed to reduce use of methyl bromide and some countries within the European Union, including the United Kingdom, have outright banned the gas.

In 2010, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) wanted to ensure that, by 2020, users of methyl bromide would have the technology to capture, store and neutralise the gas. However, an industry representative group has applied for a reassessment of the use of methyl bromide, noting that their members are struggling with the significant cost and effort of finding alternative solutions in an environment where use of the gas is increasing substantially.

American chemical engineer, Peter Joyce, disputes the industry group’s claims, asserting that he had been in dialogue with the EPA concerning his own methyl bromide-capturing technology, but that initial interest eventually fell away. Mr Joyce has two facilities in California that “scrub” methyl bromide from the quarantine process.

Alternatives to Methyl Bromide

Alternatives to the use of methyl bromide have been difficult to find due to the efficacy and cost effectiveness of the fumigant. In August 2018, the EPA heard from a Czech company that intends to import ethanedinitrile as alternative to methyl bromide though the benefits of this new fumigant were unclear in comparison to New Zealand’s current methyl bromide usage.

Legal Action

Overseas, class action lawsuits have already been taken out against illegal exposure to methyl bromide in Minneapolis as early as 1998.

In New Zealand, the Tauranga Moana Fumigant Action Group was formed in 2017 to contest use of methyl bromide at the Port of Tauranga. The group has registered its concern about a March 2018 incident where three port workers were hospitalised for treatment over suspected exposure to the ozone-depleting toxin.

In February 2018, a further resource consent application to use methyl bromide at the port was declined by the Environment Court for the reason that increasing the number of consents would not help to reduce New Zealand’s methyl bromide consumption by 2020. Previous testing at the Port of Tauranga has detected concentrations of methyl bromide from 63 parts per million (ppm) to 221 ppm, exponentially greater than the one ppm allowable under the Port’s consent.