the big hidden industry

There’s an industry that’s getting a free pass from everyone and it’s behind just about everything we have in our modern society.  

Most people don’t realize the oil industry doesn't really produce gasoline directly from a barrel of crude. Gasoline is a byproduct of the distillery cracking processes after all the chemicals are ‘broken’ out of it. These chemicals supply all our plastics, cosmetics, and a whole bunch of other stuff. 

A common illustration in the eco/sustainability world is to trace a product’s supply chain from the very start to its disposal.  An excellent example is the 'story of stuff - how cosmetics are made'

https://youtu.be/D2W7wQf4QPo


Another example I commonly used in university lectures was How  Tropicana orange juice is made and what's its largest footprint? 

The Orange Juice supply chain goes from the oranges grown on a tree to the refrigerator in your home. The in between steps include harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, using and the carton ends up in the landfill. Of the dozens of steps in this supply chain, the question is ‘which one process uses 80%+ of the entire supply chain’s carbon footprint. The answer is: the commercial fertilizer that’s used to grow the orange tree!

 I experienced another example of the power of the chemical industry in my last 3rd world country project in Ubud/Bali indonesia. For centuries farmers in India and SE Asia used to compost all their waste products (rice fields, cows, etc) and fertilize their crops with it.  The commercial fertilizer companies saw a huge market opportunity and started dumping very cheap commercial fertilizers everywhere. Farmers were soon
hooked and enjoyed the relative ease with which these chemicals increased their crop production. This didn't last long. The fertilizer companies started ratcheting up their prices, the soil started degrading, more and more chemical fertilizer had to be applied.  The monsoonal runoffs are decimating deltas and waterways. The government and chemical industries were complicit in switching centuries' old farming practices into flooding the farmlands  with chemical fertilizer. There continue to be many unintended consequences. 

I attended a DTSC(California Dept of Toxic Substance Control)  meeting about 10 years ago when they were trying to figure out when to pull the trigger on California’s new chemical regulations. Governor Brown pulled one of the toxic triggers in 2013.  I remember sitting next to a Dupont senior executive and we got to talking about Europe’s precautionary principle: he said this concept has huge drawbacks! Yeah, for whom? Not the consumer! He and the other major chemical players in the room were in full support of California’s evolving chemical regulations IF and only IF the rules were applied to foreign (read China) suppliers and urged strict enforcement. A ‘level’ playing field (that they made the rules for) were in the best interests of their profits. And I do agree with some of that… I mean China suppliers putting melamine into baby formula! that’s over the top!!


It’s easy to keep slamming the oil companies – they are so visible. We tank up on their gasoline frequently, get gridlocked in long lines on the streets & freeways and breathe the resulting polluted air and drink the filtered polluted water. What’s not to like? errr…. bitch about??  

But it’s really the chemical industry that needs to be held to account. They are the druglords, the oil industry are the drug dealers and we are the addicted users.

Maybe we need a 12 step program here.  There are a few billionaires (Elon Musk++) who are trying to get us addicted to a new supply chain. Perhaps it’ll be better than the old one? Or like the song says: new boss same as the old boss…?

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