Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
Wasting the Nation.indd - Groundwork
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Chapter 4: The toxic cradle of production11 in 2005, but does not mention fires. 2007 was a year of fire in south Durban. At <strong>the</strong>Island View chemical storage on Durban docks a series of explosions ripped through 8tanks which burnt through <strong>the</strong> night of September 18. The air was thick with chemicalsmoke and fish turned up dead in <strong>the</strong> water a few days later. The mangled wreckageof <strong>the</strong> tanks would have added to <strong>the</strong> solid waste stream. Three major fires at Engenspread fumes and soot across <strong>the</strong> neighbourhood. In July, a fire in <strong>the</strong> alkylation unitwas caused when a corroded metal flange failed. In November, a storage tank was,according to management, struck by lightening and burned for three days. Just a weeklater, a leak at <strong>the</strong> lubricants plant caused an explosion and a fierce, if brief, fire. AtSapref, in November, a fire broke out in <strong>the</strong> catalytic cracker unit.The plastics industrySasol started life as a state owned industry and was heavily subsidised even after itwas privatised in <strong>the</strong> early 1980s. This followed <strong>the</strong> US example of providing massivesubsidies to oil corporations to increase production of plastic feedstocks in <strong>the</strong> 1950s.The basic chain of plastic production looks like this: monomer producers → polymer(or resin) producers → converters [see Box 16]. According to <strong>the</strong> Plastics Federation 76 ,<strong>the</strong> South African plastic industry consumes over 1.1 million tonnes of polymersa year of which 800,000 tonnes is produced from Sasol’s monomers. Sasol is <strong>the</strong>only producer of monomers and also <strong>the</strong> largest producer of polymers. A majorexpansion, dubbed ‘Project Turbo’, was due for completion in 2007 and will nearlydouble capacity. Like monomer production, polymer production is capital and energyintensive and <strong>the</strong>re are just three o<strong>the</strong>r producers: Safripol (formerly Dow Plastics)located in Sasolburg, SANS Fibres in Cape Town and Hosaf Fibres in south Durban.Converters are considerably less capital intensive and <strong>the</strong>re are some 850 firms rangingin size from small local firms to transnationals.Sasol does not give pollution figures for individual businesses. Sasol Polymers canreasonably be assumed to produce up to a quarter of <strong>the</strong> pollution at its Sasolburg plantsin 2006. However, much of <strong>the</strong> monomer production is upstream of this plant both inSasolburg and Secunda. Sasol notes ongoing remediation of mercury contaminationat <strong>the</strong> Polymers plant [SDR 2007] and, while it has reduced VOC emissions, vinylchloride emissions are up [AR 2007]. Safripol, SANS and Hosaf give no informationon <strong>the</strong>ir environmental impacts. Spent catalyst may be assumed to be a significant76 At www.plasfed.co.za.- 108 - groundWork - <strong>Wasting</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Nation</strong>