Protecting and Contributing to the Community

When chemical companies lack a commitment to the communities in which they operate, local people, the environment, and the companies themselves suffer the negative consequences. In Anniston, AL, Monsanto hid its knowledge of the health risks of PCB pollution from the local community for 20 years until the Washington Post exposed serious health problems affecting people, animals, and water. One individual lawsuit alone was settled for 43 million and many others are pending. 

In a small town in Ohio, household tap water was polluted with C8, a contaminant that stays in the human body for years. Dupont, owner of the Teflon factory across the river, knew about the toxic pollution for decades but kept it secret from the local communities. Now several thousand area residents are suing Dupont for polluting their tap water. And the question lingers that if Monsanto and Dupont hid what it knew from their closest neighbors, what else are these companies hiding from other communities  

Developing nations, many of which compete fiercely for foreign investment by chemical companies, can also suffer from a lack of local community involvement. Chlorine containers that ruptured and then dumped in a pit near Qiqihar, China, recently resulted in 130 people being sent to hospital. In the same month, 23 people were killed and 74 injured in an explosion at a petrochemical complex in Algeria where company officials had been warned about an outdated and faulty boiler. The explosion destroyed three of the refinery s LNG plants and caused the shipping port to close. 

The code demands a commitment to openness and community dialog and through community outreach it promotes an open, ongoing dialog with employees and the community. Information is provided about such activities as waste minimization, emission reduction, health effects of chemicals, and efforts to ensure the safe transport of chemicals. 

1 presents an example of chemical company endorsement of Responsible Care. 

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