Hundreds of environmental activists in red overalls marched on Saturday with flags and banners at the Tata Steel plant in the Dutch city of IJmuiden to protest air and soil pollution in the surrounding area.
To the activists led by Greenpeace joined by local residents who say the Indian company's facility in the coastal city is responsible for the high levels of heavy metals in nearby soils.
Tata said it respects the right of the protesters to demonstrate, but urged them to leave the premises in order to for their own safety, adding that they could not shut down the facility during the protest.
One group of protesters used boats to put up a banner saying "Tata Steel, You Sicken Us" at the port where the facility receives coal and iron ore .
The site is under close scrutiny by environmental authorities, and prosecutors are investigating alleged intentional contamination of nearby groundwater, which Tata denies.
“First of all, the coking plants must close,” said Faiza Ulakhsen from Greenpeace. “Poisonous clouds are ejected there almost every day… This has to stop,” she said.
Tata, the Netherlands’ largest source of planet-heating carbon dioxide, plans to switch to hydrogen-based “green” steel — a process , which could take two decades if it gets funding.
