South African pineapple farmers have been hit hard as a result of heavy metal contamination of fertiliser.

High levels of the toxic heavy metal cadmium have been found in South African pineapples after farmers unwittingly used fertiliser contaminated with this trace element.

As a result, at least one shipment of canned pineapples from SA has been rejected in the European Union.

The fertiliser, zinc sulphate, is used "across the board" by South African agriculture.

Later tests revealed that the fertiliser also contained elevated levels of arsenic and lead.

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The EU has quite strict limits on hazardous materials, and I hope that South Africa will update their outdated laws (see article) with regards to these materials. The EU won't allow the contaminated pineapples to be imported to the EU.

If you happen to be in, or know anything about the electronics industry you will certainly have come across the EU's RoHS directive (Reduction of Hazardous Materials), which limits the levels of six substances (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB), and polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE)). The impact on manufacturing has been huge due to the change from leaded solder to unleaded.

To me these directives are pretty interesting as they are actively seeking to lower the levels of the dangerous materials. I've been doing some reading on mercury, and it alone is linked to a huge number of diseases and disorders. We need this kind of advanced regulation in SA, but if we can't get some of the basics right, how will be manage to get a grip on these?