Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork

Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of productionChemicals and plasticWaste does not flow in neat ‘streams’. It spills out of production, distribution andconsumption processes along the entire length of the production chains. And thesechains are themselves not as orderly as the metaphor of chains implies. Broadlyspeaking, there are three main sources of chemicals: petrochemicals from fossil fuels– coal, oil and gas – are used to make a very wide range of products including solvents,paints, plastics, fertilisers and pesticides; chemicals derived from plants are largely usedin pharmaceuticals and cosmetics; ‘inorganic’ chemicals derived from minerals areused to produce chlorine, caustic soda, acids and fertilisers.Chemicals from different sources are mixed in production. Thus, while plastics areprimarily derived from petrochemicals, chlorine is a common ingredient, particularlyin Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). The endless manipulation of molecules, the basicbuilding blocks of chemistry, results in some 2,000 new products coming onto theglobal market each year, many of which are toxic. Chemicals are also pervasively usedin production processes, including the production of other chemicals. In the process,they are contaminated and so become unusable and end up as often toxic wastes fromproduction.The chemicals sector makes up a major slice of South African industry, producing24% of the value of all manufacturing. This includes liquid fuels production whichdominates chemicals, producing close to 33% of value within the sector and creatingthe feedstock for chemicals production. Liquid fuels are produced from importedcrude oil, coal and gas. Table 7 shows the location, ownership, fuel source and capacityof the refineries. Sasol Chemical Industries, located primarily in Sasolburg, uses thesame technology as it’s Secunda coal-to-liquids plant to produce basic chemicals.All these plants produce massive wastes to air, water and land. Chevron gives no accountof its environmental wastes and has consistently reneged on promises made to localenvironmental activists to reduce emissions. PetroSA is a state owned corporation.Its 2007 Annual Report shows no sense of public accountability in respect of theenvironment. It claims that, “No environmental incident with a high negative impacton PetroSA’s operations was experienced in the past year” [95]. Beyond this, it saysnothing of its environmental performance or policies.Wasting the Nation - groundWork - 103 -