4.2 The Ongoing History of Integrated Development
57
In addition to manufacturing accidents, damaging, long-term emissions from
normal manufacturing operations have also gained public attention. Perhaps the
most famous example is the emission of methylmercury from the Chisso Corporation in Minamata, Japan, which began in the early 1900s and led to thousands of
local deaths and permanent damage to human and environmental health (Harada,
1995). More recently, the leaching of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into drinking
water supplies in the United States from DuPont-owned sites was discovered. In
2017, lawsuits for human health damages over the pollution were settled (Reisch,
2017), and in 2019 a major Hollywood film was released dramatizing the legal battle
(IMDb, 2019) and bringing even more global public awareness to the issue. Such
events often led to a rapid tightening of local safety and environmental legislation
through political processes, many in the 1980s. The chemical industry responded
using various measures and sought improvements in their technical and scientific
understanding of operations as well as in new management processes:
• Construction of expensive end-of-pipe treatment and safety infrastructure
• Improvements in gathering core data to describe their operations, for example,
through the development of environmental measurement methods and processor plant-specific material and energy balances
• Completing and expanding risk assessments of products and processes
• Expanding company safety and environmental protection culture
Separate from manufacturing operations and accidents, awareness has more
recently grown regarding the risks of chemical products in causing damage to human
health and the environment. This awareness has been made possible largely through
the recent advancements in environmental analytics (e.g. trace analysis of chemicals
in the environment, biomonitoring of humans, etc.), which have for the first time
made the fate and widespread global presence of many synthetic chemicals in the
environment visible.
Ongoing concerns have been expressed by various civil society groups as well
as academic scientists regarding topics such as the widespread use of pesticides in
agriculture (Reuters, 2018), pollution of the oceans by microplastics (Worm et al.,
2017), and use of chemicals that can interact with (and disrupt) the endocrine system
in everyday consumer products (Dodson et al., 2012). While progress continues to
be made to formally address some of these critical chemical issues (such as the
Minamata Convention on Mercury that came into force in 2017 (Minamata Convention on Mercury, 2018)), there are still many ongoing discussions, unresolved
issues, and new concerns to address.
Despite improvements that have been made in many regards over the last few
decades, the use of integrated development in the chemical industry is clearly
still needed today. Considering the larger variety of products on the market and
the ever-increasing global annual production volume of chemicals, perhaps it is
more important now than ever before. Reactive approaches such as end-of-pipe
treatments have largely reached their limits, and instead, a proactive approach is
needed to prevent these emissions (and their impacts) from the very beginning.
57
In addition to manufacturing accidents, damaging, long-term emissions from
normal manufacturing operations have also gained public attention. Perhaps the
most famous example is the emission of methylmercury from the Chisso Corporation in Minamata, Japan, which began in the early 1900s and led to thousands of
local deaths and permanent damage to human and environmental health (Harada,
1995). More recently, the leaching of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) into drinking
water supplies in the United States from DuPont-owned sites was discovered. In
2017, lawsuits for human health damages over the pollution were settled (Reisch,
2017), and in 2019 a major Hollywood film was released dramatizing the legal battle
(IMDb, 2019) and bringing even more global public awareness to the issue. Such
events often led to a rapid tightening of local safety and environmental legislation
through political processes, many in the 1980s. The chemical industry responded
using various measures and sought improvements in their technical and scientific
understanding of operations as well as in new management processes:
• Construction of expensive end-of-pipe treatment and safety infrastructure
• Improvements in gathering core data to describe their operations, for example,
through the development of environmental measurement methods and processor plant-specific material and energy balances
• Completing and expanding risk assessments of products and processes
• Expanding company safety and environmental protection culture
Separate from manufacturing operations and accidents, awareness has more
recently grown regarding the risks of chemical products in causing damage to human
health and the environment. This awareness has been made possible largely through
the recent advancements in environmental analytics (e.g. trace analysis of chemicals
in the environment, biomonitoring of humans, etc.), which have for the first time
made the fate and widespread global presence of many synthetic chemicals in the
environment visible.
Ongoing concerns have been expressed by various civil society groups as well
as academic scientists regarding topics such as the widespread use of pesticides in
agriculture (Reuters, 2018), pollution of the oceans by microplastics (Worm et al.,
2017), and use of chemicals that can interact with (and disrupt) the endocrine system
in everyday consumer products (Dodson et al., 2012). While progress continues to
be made to formally address some of these critical chemical issues (such as the
Minamata Convention on Mercury that came into force in 2017 (Minamata Convention on Mercury, 2018)), there are still many ongoing discussions, unresolved
issues, and new concerns to address.
Despite improvements that have been made in many regards over the last few
decades, the use of integrated development in the chemical industry is clearly
still needed today. Considering the larger variety of products on the market and
the ever-increasing global annual production volume of chemicals, perhaps it is
more important now than ever before. Reactive approaches such as end-of-pipe
treatments have largely reached their limits, and instead, a proactive approach is
needed to prevent these emissions (and their impacts) from the very beginning.