Bioremediation of Agent Orange chemicals made in Sydney for Vietnam War

More than 50 years after the Vietnam War, uni students are removing remnants of Agent Orange chemicals from a waterway connected to Sydney Harbour.

During the 20th century, Homebush Bay on the Rhodes peninsula, located about 19 kilometres west of Sydney's CBD, was an industrial hotspot for herbicide, pesticide and preservative production.

US company Union Carbide, which was responsible for the 1984 Bhopal disaster, produced 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D at the site for the Vietnam War effort — two ingredients found in Agent Orange.

Union Carbide operated in Rhodes from 1928 to 1986. (Supplied: City of Canada Bay Local Studies Collection/Paul Ife Horne)

The mixture contained long-lasting compounds called 'dioxins', a persistent organic pollutant known to cause health issues in humans.

According to Australia's Department of Veterans' Affairs (DVA), the US used the concoction as a defoliant to reduce food and shelter used by the enemy.

Between 1962 and 1971, the US sprayed the mixture over southern Vietnam.

The US military sprayed Agent Orange as a defoliant on dense jungle during the Vietnam War. (Wikimedia: US National Archives)

The DVA estimated Agent Orange covered 3 million hectares of land and 20,000 Vietnamese villages.

It also estimated 3 million Vietnamese people developed health conditions from the exposure, including cancers, deformities and neurological disorders.

An aerial view of Rhodes peninsula and Homebush Bay. (Supplied: Sharon Weismantel/Douglass Baglin Pty Ltd)

Sharon Weismantel's first encounter with Rhodes was in 1986 when Union Carbide had begun to wind down its operations, after she started dating local resident and her now-husband, John Weismantel.

She moved in with him a year later, when there were roughly 275 residents on their side of the tracks.

Ms Weismantel said you could smell chemicals from nearby factories.

"There was a time when there was some spill at Union Carbide … on the Thursday, and by Saturday, it was affecting the leaves on hydrangeas — they were withering."

A photograph of the Union Carbide site taken in 1984. (Supplied: City of Canada Bay Local Studies Collection)

Ms Weismantel said her father-in-law worked at the CSR Chemicals site in Rhodes which suffered spills.

"The environmental people could never find it [the spill] because the product had actually gone through the soil. It was heavier than water and heavier than the soil," she said.

The real problem with Union Carbide's operations emerged when it decided to reclaim land in Homebush Bay.

During a time when environmental laws were not as stringent, th