Protesters enter Unilever factory
April 21, 2008
More than 40 environmental campaigners are staging a protest at a Unilever plant in Merseyside.
The group, from Greenpeace, entered the site at Port Sunlight in Wirral on Monday morning to demonstrate against its use of palm oil.
Merseyside Police have described the demonstration as peaceful. The company has yet to comment.
Greenpeace claim the use of palm oil by companies such as Unilever is damaging rainforests in Indonesia.
A spokeswoman for Merseyside Police said the force was aware of the demonstration and officers were monitoring the protesters.
A Greenpeace spokesman said the group arrived in two vans at the front and back entrance of the site and simply walked in.
'Controversial' ingredient
Some of the protesters were dressed as orang-utans and may have caused a distraction to security, the spokesman said.
The demonstrators are occupying the site in protest at Unilever's use of palm oil in some of its products, such as Persil, he added.
The spokesman said the group would leave "if Unilever agrees to stop buying palm oil from companies who are destroying rainforests".
Palm oil is an ingredient in foods and soaps and a bio-fuel added to diesel for cars.
The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin said it was a controversial oil because it is often grown on rainforest land in South-East Asia.
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