Toxic Chemical Industry Developments, January 2023
Toxic fragrances, disinfectants, insulation, fluorination, greenwash, tornado, fires
A monthly summary of new resources, industry developments, and disasters related to the production of toxic chemicals worldwide.
New Resources
Disinfectants and fragrance supply chain
The Material Research Atlas added a dozen factories in Mexico and the U.S. related to the production of quaternary ammonium compounds and fragrances. Further details about these factories, their impacts, and relationships to personal care product are in two research memos that we produced recently for Women’s Voices for the Earth:
The Toxic Trail of Fragrance Chemicals, https://womensvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Research-brief_-The-Toxic-Trail-of-Fragrance-Chemicals.pdf
The Dirty Business of Disinfectants, https://womensvoices.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Research-brief_-Quats-The-Dirty-Business-of-Disinfectants.pdf
Chemical and EJ Impacts of Building Insulation
In September 2022, the Healthy Building Network and Natural Resources Defense Council published a brief on the chemical and environmental justice impacts arising from the life cycles of fiberglass and spray foam insulation. Case studies compare the primary inputs for spray foam and fiberglass building insulation and found a much heavier pollution burden for spray foam. Over their life cycles, both materials impact communities with disproportionate numbers of Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC), and/or low-income residents. This study is part of the Energy Efficiency for All initiative. Toxic chemical factories named in the report are now included in the Material Research Atlas, with links to the NRDC/HBN report.
Toxic Chemical Industry Developments
EPA, environmental groups sue plastic container fluorination company
Greenwire reported that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency filed a suit last month against Inhance Technologies “for allegedly releasing ‘forever chemicals’ into tens of millions of plastic containers that later contaminated pesticides, which the agency said poses “unreasonable” risks to workers and the environment.” Inhance treats plastic containers with fluorinated gases to prevent them from losing shape. This “technology is used for rigid packaging that is mainly destined for consumer-packaged goods, pharmaceutical, health and beauty, industrial and agricultural chemicals,” according to RecyClass.eu, a plastics industry recycling website.
The Center for Environmental Health and Public Employees for Public Responsibility also filed a lawsuit against Inhance in December 2022. The organizations say Inhance is the “principal supplier of post-mold fluorination services in the U.S.” They claim the company “has violated, and continues to violate, EPA’s Significant New Uses Rule for long-chain perfluoroalkyl carboxylate.” These toxic substances, the filing alleges, are formed in the fluorination process.
Inhance “has a long history of environmental and labor complaints,” reported Greenwire. Inhance has facilities in Yuma, Arizona; Forest Park, Georgia; West Chicago, Illinois; Mount Pleasant, Iowa; Kansas City, Missouri; Saint Louis, Missouri; Lakawanna, N.Y.; Columbus, Ohio; Allentown, Pa.; and Houston, Texas, where it is headquartered.
These facilities, with links to the CEH/PEER lawsuit, are now included in the Material Research Atlas. This brings the total number of facilities in the Atlas to 491, including 162 outside the U.S.
Thirumalai (TCL) Industries of India plans new chemical factory in West Virginia, U.S.A.
TCL Industries of India plans to build a chemical complex along the Ohio River in northern West Virginia. The facilities will be located next to the Covestro chemical plant in New Martinsville. According to WTRF-TV, TCL Industries hopes to begin production by mid-2024 of maleic anhydride, a feedstock fo polymers and coatings, and malic and funaric acid. TCL has produced chemicals including maleic anhydride in India since 1993.
Violations mount at the new Shell plastics factory in Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Upstream from TCL’s planned factory on the Ohio River lies Shell Polymers’ massive new ethylene cracker and polyethylene pellet plant. It opened in November last year. A Talking Points Memo story by Jordan Gass-Poore’ posted on Jan. 18 notes that Shell has violated the state DEP’s environmental health and safety regulations at least 21 times since construction started in 2015. The plant opened last November with the capacity to produce 1.6 million tons per year of polyethylene pellets. TPM said some of these pellets are already in the adjacent Ohio River.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jan. 22 provided vivid details of recent troubles:
“September marked the first time that ethane, which comes from shale wells across Appalachia, went through the seven furnaces on Shell’s massive campus. The furnaces use high-pressure steam to break apart ethane’s molecular bonds, turning it into ethylene for polyethylene pellets,” reported Anya Litvak. “On Sept. 3, a missing O-ring in a circulation pump led to a leak of isobutane vapor. Two days later, brown emissions were seen coming out of high pressure ground flares — two metal combustion chambers that burn off unwanted gasses from the ethane cracker. Three days after that, two separate flanges leaked hydrocarbons, and an ethylene refrigerant compressor tripped after it registered a high dew-point temperature. It tripped again two days later because of high vibration, which cascaded into a trip of several other systems. On Sept.15, a calibration error caused a trip of the cracked gas compressor. In another three days, the propane refrigeration compressor stopped; three days after that, high methanol levels in the acetylene reactor caused that equipment to malfunction.”
The Post-Gazette adds, among air samples “collected Oct. 11, one number stood out – a concentration of benzene near the wastewater treatment plant that was 20 times higher than the threshold that triggers a mandatory root-cause investigation. The problem started Oct. 4, according to a report that Shell filed with the DEP earlier this month. Odors occasionally wafted from two biotreater aeration tanks, where wastewater is mixed with oxygen to encourage the growth of microbes that will feast on hydrocarbons left in that water. On Nov. 6, odors were detected outside the plant, across the Ohio River. They continued until Dec. 13. Shell traced the problem to the ethane cracker.”
Petrochemical “greenwash” faces legal challenges
Some of us at Material Research have been at this long enough to remember the emergence of the phrase “greenwash.” Kenny Bruno, who coordinated Greenpeace’s Hazardous Exports-Imports Prevention program at the time, launched this phrase into the environmental movement’s lexicon with his 1992 study, “The Greenpeace Book of Greenwash,” and his followup with Jed Greer in 1997, “Greenwash: The Reality Behind Corporate Environmentalism.”
“We are asked to believe that corporations are now something fundamentally different than what they were before,” wrote Bruno in 1992. Thirty years later, corporations embrace greenwash more than ever. Regulators are finally taking note.
The public prosecution office of Nanterre, France, has been investigating allegations that the petrochemical multinational TotalEnergies was engaged in “misleading commercial practices.” Reuters reported, “There has been a series of civil lawsuits and complaints filed by environmental groups, arguing that TotalEnergies' public advertising of its climate-friendly investments are misleading given the much larger amount of money the company invests in oil and gas exploration and production.”
The European Union is considering imposing penalties to dissuade the spread of corporate disinformation. Euractiv reported on a leaked draft proposal by an EU executive, which reads, “Consumers lack reliable information about the sustainability of products and face misleading commercial practices like greenwashing or the lack of transparency and credibility of environmental labels.”
“EU countries will be put in charge of ensuring that ‘those rules are enforced’ and introduce ‘penalties’ on offenders that ‘should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive,” according to edie.net. “Penalties should be established based on common criteria, it continues, saying those should include ‘the nature and gravity of the infringement’ as well as ‘the economic benefits derived’ from it and the potential environmental damage caused.”
U.S. regulators too are facing calls to punish corporations for greenwash. Global Witness just filed a suit with the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission against Shell. “The pioneering complaint opens a new front in a burgeoning battle over gas’s green credentials,” reported the Washington Post. “‘Shell has been engaging in what we consider to be pretty egregious greenwashing,’ Zorka Milin, a senior legal adviser at Global Witness, told The Climate 202. ‘And we would like to invite scrutiny from the appropriate authorities.’”
Ethylene cracker expansions continue despite “oversupply”
Crackers that transform natural gas into ethylene are the essential stage for manufacturing many plastics. ICIS.com analyst John Richardson reported on January 23 that globally, “new cracker and derivatives projects continue at a fairly rapid pace despite today’s probably all-time-record levels of oversupply.”
He notes that seven major ethylene expansions are planned in the next four years. Persian Gulf monarchies have stakes in five of these projects. Saudi Aramco plans to build new crackers in Saudi Arabia (1.65 million tons per year, joint venture with TotalEnergies); China (1.5 million tons, with Sinopec, which is controlled by the government of China); and South Korea (1.8 million ton venture of its S-Oil subsidiary). QatarEnergy is involved in two joint ventures with ChevronPhillips Chemical: a 2.08 million ton per year joint venture (Golden Triangle Polymers) in Orange, Texas, and a 2.1 million ton project in Ras Lafan, Qatar. The other two projects noted by ICIS are a 1.8 million ton expansion of Dow’s cracker in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada, and Ineos’ 1.45 million ton project in Belgium.
“As plastics supply balloons, demand growth is increasingly challenged,” reports Richardson. These challenges include “growing evidence of the toxicity of plastic waste and progress towards a global agreement on limiting plastic waste.”
Lotte sells plastics feedstock plant in Pakistan
Lotte Chemical of South Korea announced this month that it was selling its purified terephthalic acid (PTA) plant in Pakistan to Lucky Core Industries, a local chemical company. PTA is used to make PET plastic reins. Lotte is no longer producing PTA anywhere after closing its domestic line in Ulsan, Korea, in 2020, according to The Korea Times.
Toxic Chemical Incidents
Plastic factory fires and tornado signal new year of toxic chemical incidents
A blast in the boiler of a plastic film factory in India unleashed a fire and claimed three lives on New Year’s Day.
Packaging Trade Asia says the factory, Jindal Poly Films, was “one of the leading film manufacturers for the flexible packaging industry.” Brookfield, an investment firm in Canada, acquired 25% of the company in 2022.
According to trade records examined by Material Research, Jindal Poly Films imports plastics and plastic feedstocks from producers in China, including Ineos Aromatics Asia. (Ineos continues to deepen its ties to the government of China’s petrochemical company, Sinopec. In 2022, Ineos acquired 50% shares in two Sinopec plastics projects: Tianjin Nangang Ethylene and a new joint venture to produce ABS.)
Fire at Indorama in Spain
Another plastics factory fire occurred on January 1, thousands of miles away, near Gibraltar. Indorama’s factory in San Roque, Cádiz, Spain, produces PET resins (230,000 tons per year capacity) and its feedstock, purified terephthalic acid (PTA, 203,000 ton capacity). Indorama, based in Indonesia, has acquired 20 plastics plants worldwide and has become the world’s largest producer of PET.
“Black smoke billowed from the Indorama plant and was pushed by wind toward Algeciras, where residents reported a strong chemical smell,” reported The Gibraltar Chronicle. “Residents in San Roque heard a loud explosion at around 9.30am, believed to have come from an oven in the petrochemical plant where plastics are produced.” The same factory had a major blaze in 2019.
Toxic Texas Tornado
Plastics News reported that a tornado ran through the heart of the petrochemical industry east of Houston, Texas. Ineos’ plastics plant “suffered a direct hit from a tornado on January 24th, according to a letter to customers.”
According to a National Weather Service storm survey, “three high tension power lines were flattened” north of Deer Park near the Ship Channel. This suggests EF-3 level damage in the petrochemical production zone. In addition to Ineos, OxyVinyl’s vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plant was in the storm’s path as charted by the National Weather Service. VCM is used to produce polyvinyl chloride plastics. TotalEnergies’ polypropylene factory was quite close as well. Shell Chemicals and other factories in the vicinity reported operational issues including flaring due to power outages.
For the latest information on toxic chemical disasters and incidents in the U.S., visit the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters website (English and Spanish).
Future updates….
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