How chemicals are causing great harm to our planet

For many years, the battle to fight the pollution of our planet, and the oceans in particular, has focused on plastics and the growing threat they pose, and with good reason.
Millions of tons of plastic waste already pollute every corner of the Earth and microplastics have seeped into the oceans where they are systematically destroying fragile, and even not-so-fragile, ecosystems that took millions of years to develop.
But plastics are just a part, albeit perhaps the most visible, of the chemical pollution that is seriously threatening all forms of life everywhere around the globe. Besides plastics, there are at least 350,000 other synthetic products that are of great concern to ecologists. They include pesticides, insecticides, domestic cleaning products, industrial compounds, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products and paints. The list is long and ever-growing as scientists churn out new products to satisfy never-ending human greed.
A study conducted this year found that the production and disposal of extremely dangerous chemicals has reached such proportions that the toxic mix has pushed the planet outside the stable environment that has existed for 10,000 years.
Almost all chemicals harm the earth in a number of ways. For instance, pesticides kill many more species than the ones they target, including those that are vital to nature. A prominent example of this is the threat to bees and butterflies, which are key to the survival of millions of species of plants and trees. Pesticides have caused widespread unintended harm to thousands of species of insects, leading to the near extinction of many that play crucial roles in ecosystems.
Chemicals also seep into the soil and enter the food chain through agriculture, animal products and even drinking water. Discussion of incidents in which drinking water has been polluted by industries that are either too greedy or too careless to deal with their waste properly could fill thousands of pages.
Yet despite all the evidence of the growing damage that chemicals cause to the environment, to plants and animals, and to human health, chemical production continues to increase at a rapid pace all around the world. It is a burden beyond comprehension and obviously beyond the coping capacity of the Earth, which is showing the widespread effects of damage caused by chemical production.
Even with all the warning signs, the chemical industry continues to churn out more and more of the same, damaging products. Estimates predict that global chemical sales are set to almost double in value from $3.7 trillion in 2019 to $6.2 trillion in 2030.

There must be an obligation on the chemical industry to adopt stricter environmental and safety standards.

Ranvir S. Nayar

And while many of the giants of the chemical industry are Western firms, production has increasingly been shifting rapidly to Asia, the Middle East and Africa. It might not be entirely coincidental that in many countries in these regions the regulation of the industry, and pollution caused by it, is rather minimal.
Environmentalists say that instead of making the necessary investments in ensuring proper and responsible production methods, and disposal procedures for waste, the chemical companies instead have been happily shifting these costs to society — and, of course, to the environment and human health.
Proponents of the chemical industry would point out that the global population is increasingly dependent on chemicals and cannot live without them. Yes, this is certainly so. Chemicals have indeed invaded all aspects of our daily lives. But the question is not whether we need chemicals, it is more about how they are produced and how they are disposed of.
Most crucially, solutions exist that promote “green chemistry” and the production of products that use chemicals that either exist in nature or which can be disposed of safely by the consumer or the producer.
There must be an obligation on the chemical industry to adopt stricter environmental and safety standards, which is something it has been lobbying hard against for several decades.
Consumers, too, can play an increasingly important role in ensuring that the industry becomes more responsible, not only by making environment-friendly purchasing decisions, favoring greener chemicals over more toxic ones, but also by reducing consumption and moving toward a zero-waste policy.
We have seen how consumer preferences and the shaming of polluting companies has worked in the energy industry, by forcing it to adopt greener practices. Similar pressure can work with the chemical industry but it will require much greater awareness of chemical pollution and the dangers it poses to human health, the ecosystem and the entire planet.
Currently, awareness levels about the dangers of chemicals are generally low, even in the most well-informed societies, and those who take on the chemical industry are still considered fringe elements — in a similar way, perhaps, to how climate activists were viewed three decades ago. Only when the chemical warriors are embraced by the mainstream can the real battle to save the planet from these noxious products begin in earnest.

• Ranvir S. Nayar is managing editor of Media India Group.