In 1950, cats began 'dancing' in peaceful fishing village near the Japanese city of Minamata; the felines had convulsions, went mad and died. Crows fell from the sky in midflight, dead too. In 1959, a five-year-old was admitted to the hospital when she suddenly could not walk and talk. Two days later, her younger sister began having the symptoms too. A house-to-house check in all the villages revealed that an epidemic was developing that attacked the central nervous system of patients. It was only in 1959 that scientists discovered they were poisoned with mercury. Where a normal person would have up to 4 parts per million (ppm) in mercury in them, those with the Minamata Disease, as it is called today, had as much as 950ppm.

A large chemical factory in Minamata was found to be discharging wastewater containing so much mercury since 1932 that sediment in the nearby river was found to contain 2kg of mercury per tonne of sediment and all the patients were found to have eaten large amounts of shellfish and other marine catches caught from that bay. Until 2001 and despite cleanup costs that ran into the millions of US Dollars, patients with Minamata Disease were still discovered. This tragedy, today, is a grim example that what we do to the environment can have a long-lasting and far-reaching impact on our lives. It is for this reason that the ISO 14001 tools and management systems were created to help businesses maintain the environmental sustainability of their operations. MY CO2's testing and assessment capabilities are designed to help clients and governments monitor their activities in accordance with ISO 14001 to help sustain growth.