Communities Near Petrochemical Plants Pay The Price For Plastic Convenience

Yvette Arellano had a nosebleed twice during the 10-day-long Global Plastic Treaty negotiations in Geneva in August this year. “This is frequent. Apart from eczema and hormonal imbalance. I can’t have children unless I put massive resources into it,” said Arellano, a Mexican-American who stays in Texas’ Houston city in the United States of America. “In fact, it was over my skin condition that I would have a conversation with my neighbours and get to know they were suffering too,” she said.

Thousands of miles away, on the western coast of India, a casual survey in mid-2024 found that in Lakhigam village near Dahej in Gujarat’s Bharuch district, respiratory illness, skin and hearing issues were common and at least 50 cases of cancer were found in a population of 5000. “This is thanks to the open-air conveyor belt that transports coal. The village remains coated in soot, and because of the noise and foul smell, it is impossible to sleep without shutting doors,” said Kamlesh Madhiwala, an advocate and president of the Samast Bharuch Jilla Machimar Samaj, an association fighting for fishers’ rights.

There’s one thing, however, that connects the issues of the people in the Houston Ship Channel, where Arellano lives, and the people of Lakhigam 14,000 kilometres away – many of their health problems are linked to pollution from factories that are producing plastic.

While images of plastic bags strangling turtles in the sea have drawn substantial attention to the issue of plastic waste, the source of the plastic — factories producing plastic polymer — and the pollution they cause, has stayed out of public gaze.

“Plastics are embedded in nearly every aspect of our daily lives – from airplanes to toothbrushes. However, the goods and services that plastic enables have a full lifecycle that impacts the environment not only through litter but also through greenhouse gas emissions, thereby contributing to climate change,” said Iewa Rucevska, senior expert at GRID Arendal, a Norwegian non-profit, referring to the dual impact of plastic as waste and as a driver of emissions. Plastic manufacturing accounts for approximately 3.7% of greenhouse gas emissions, projected to increase to 4.5% by 2060 at the current rate.

How are plastics made?

As the world shifts from fossil fuels like coal and crude oil to renewable sources for energy and electric vehicles for transportation, petroleum refineries consider petrochemicals, such as plastics, fertilisers, tyres, and synthetic fibres, to be their Plan B.

Almost 99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels (crude oil) in refinery complexes like the ones situated in Dahej and the Houston Ship Channel.

Crude oil is essentially a mix of hydrocarbons, compounds made up only of hydrogen and carbon atoms. After extraction from the ground or the ocean, it is taken to a refinery where it is heated in a furnace. The mixture then undergoes a process called ‘fractional distillation,’ which separates the hydrocarbons into various products, including petroleum gas, gasoline, kerosene, naphtha, light oil, and heavy oil.

Plastics are made mainly from two raw materials, naphtha (a product of crude oil) and natural gas. When these are processed, they give lighter gases such as ethylene, propylene, and styrene. These gases are then combined through a chemical process to form various materials, including polypropylene, polyethylene, PET, and polystyrene. These materials are the basic ingredients used to make most of the plastics we see in daily life.

The global annual production of plastics grew from two million tonnes (MT) in 1950 to 400 MT in 2025. Approximately half of all plastics produced to date have been manufactured since 2002.

Who bears the cost?

“Until 2017, I had no idea that my entire life was affected by plastics. I fought against chemicals affecting our community, odours and explosions in the ethylene plants around us, but did not know it was linked to plastics. I thought they were making fuel/gasoline out of it,” recalled Arellano, the founder of Fenceline Watch, a group working against the toxic impact of fossil fuel infrastructure around the Houston Ship Channel, popularly called the “energy capital of the world.”

“To realise that so much of that tonnage of crude oil was going into producing plastics was enraging,” Arellano said. With 600 companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell and Dow, the Houston Ship Channel is the largest petrochemical complex in the USA. The road from Texas to Louisiana connects to “Cancer Ally,” notorious for the high rate of the disease that has been attributed to the 200 petrochemical plants there.

A 2024 report by Amnesty International found the presence of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), such as benzene and toluene, as well as greenhouse gases like methane and carbon dioxide, and particulate matter in the area. Since 2021, the Houston Ship Channel has reported at least 15 chemical explosions, fires, and toxic releases. A separate study noted health risks ranging from headaches, fatigue, nausea and nosebleeds to asthma, anaemia, childhood leukaemia, cancers, kidney and liver damage, sterility, and even death.

While affected communities from the USA had some representation at the Treaty talks in Geneva, those from India and the Global South were absent, just like studies on the health impacts of plastic production in the region. “The Lakhigam survey happened when people, sick of air pollution by the 9.8 km long open conveyor belt in Dahej, decided to file a case. The belt transports coal, gypsum, polypropylene, and propylene,” said Madhiwala.

However, the loss of traditional livelihoods, mainly fishing and agriculture, is evident as fields become saline and the sea becomes polluted from chemicals leaking into it. “The number of Pagadia fishers (fishers on foot) in the 10 coastal villages from Dahej to Bhadbhut (a proposed barrage) has reduced by half in the last 10-12 years. More than 10,000 villagers earned a decent income from fishing earlier without venturing into the deep sea. But now, the waters till the Dahej port, the maximum distance they would go inside the sea, are full of effluent, affecting their income,” said Madhiwala.

Situated near the Gulf of Khambhat, Dahej is India’s first functioning Petroleum, Chemical and Petrochemical Investment Region (PCPIR) out of the four planned in 2007 by the Government of India. It has approximately 180 existing and 650 under-construction industrial units including those of public sector company ONGC, private industries such as Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), and Adani Petronet. “The highly saline effluent released by the companies’ desalination plants kills prawns, the main fish found in the mudflats in Dahej,” claimed Usmangani Sherasiya, Secretary of the Samast Machimar Samaj, an association of fishers, Gujarat.

Most petrochemical complexes are located on the coast since India imports more than 85% of its crude oil. As one travels north along the Gujarat coastline, a section of the Gulf of Kutch is also lined with petrochemical jetties. Starting from Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) in Jamnagar, the world’s largest single-site refinery, there is Nayara Energy Ltd. in Vadinar, India’s second largest refinery, and the Essar Port in Salaya. “Between them, they have covered the entire coast from Sikka to Salaya. For small Pagadiya fishers, there are hardly any passages in between. Most of them have become labourers-either with big boats that remain at sea for days together or with petrochemical companies,” said Jayendrasinh Ker, environmental activist in Jamnagar district.

Massive fish kill happens when ballast water–the water filled in a ship’s tank for stable manouvering-is released from incoming ships at the port, which alters the coastal water temperature, informed Ker. On the other hand, chemical ingress from these plants has rendered agriculture non-remunerative. “Groundwater is contaminated in villages near Vadinar. During the monsoon, people cultivate one crop, but after that, using this water for irrigation would burn the crop,” claimed Ker.

Most of these refineries are  close to the Gulf of Kutch Marine National Park, which houses 52 species of coral. Oil leakage leads to the formation of tar balls, which can impact marine ecology, Ker said.

But in Jamnagar, no one is protesting. “In Gujarat, medical practitioners are not willing to talk about the health impact of refineries on local population for fear of being slapped with defamation charges by giant companies. However, they did not outrightly deny the impact of petrochemical operations,” said Siddharth Ghanshyam Singh, Programme Manager (Solid Waste Management and Circular Economy) at the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi.

Global studies back this fear. “Studies from Europe, Taiwan, the USA, and the UK show that there is a 30% higher risk of leukaemia for those living close to petrochemical industries,” said Megan Deeney, research fellow at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and a member of the Scientists’ Coalition for an Effective Plastic Treaty. Another study shows that the release of particulate matter from plastic production and disposal was responsible for about 1,59,000 deaths globally in 2015.

The bone of contention

At the Global Plastic Treaty talks, negotiations for a legally binding plastics treaty ended without consensus, largely because of disagreements on plastic production between countries. At the penultimate plenary session of the meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 5.2), the Chair, Luis Vayas Valdivieso presented a draft that, among other things, did not include any mention of legally binding measures to cap plastic production.

While oil and petrochemical-rich countries such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kuwait, Iran, and India favoured the move, it drew ire from more than 100 countries that called it “unacceptable, imbalanced, and lacking ambition.” The U.S. opposed production caps and reportedly sent memos to some countries urging them to reject a treaty that includes limits on production. “The U.S. behaved like a bully. We could see them creating barriers,” said Arellano.

The UN Environment Assembly, which called for setting up INC in November 2022, aimed to reduce plastic pollution across the “full lifecycle of plastics, including upstream (production), midstream (product design and use) and downstream (waste management). However, countries with business interests are attempting to portray plastic pollution as a “waste management issue.”

“Production cap on plastics is central to achieving climate goals. If plastics continue to be manufactured at this rate, they could consume up to one-third of our remaining carbon budget for a 1.5-degree increase. Cleanups can’t be the key goals of this treaty. We can’t mop while the tap is on,” said Dharmesh Shah, Senior Campaigner (Plastics Treaty) with the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL). A CIEL analysis during the conference revealed that more than 234 fossil fuel lobbyists were present, indicating a potential conflict of interest.

Racing in the wrong direction

As per 2024 data, seven countries are responsible for 66% of global plastics production. China, the U.S., and Saudi Arabia together produce more than half of it, with India contributing 4% to the global mix. According to a Greenpeace report, since the start of the Plastics Treaty process in 2022, the seven biggest petrochemical companies have ramped up their production capacity by 1.4 million tonnes. Another study highlighted that a total of $45 billion in subsidies was allocated to petrochemical companies in 2024 across at least 15 countries.

Under Indian law, Special Economic Zones, such as the one owned by RIL, also enjoy benefits, including tax holidays for 10 years and exemption from excise and customs duties.

“Indirectly, the taxpayers are having to fund a polluting activity while there is no liability on the company to shoulder the health cost of the pollution they are creating,” said Swathi Seshadri, petrochemical expert with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

Due to a global economic slowdown since 2020, the petrochemical markets are facing an oversupply, according to an analysis by IEEFA. The petrochemical industry, “what was once viewed as a fallback growth strategy for fossil fuel companies, is now facing considerable headwinds,” it said.

Trade data indicate that polymer production is now shifting to the Asia-Pacific region, largely due to lax environmental regulations and demand from major markets such as India. “The Asian region dominates global trade in primary plastic polymers, with 11 exporting and 18 importing countries,” it said and added that with shrinking markets and a pile-up of polymers, developing countries dependent on it are exposing themselves to a looming financial risk.

It is not the demand for plastic that drives its use, but increasing supply, with the industry aggressively seeking new markets to compensate for stagnant sales of vehicular fuel. “If the production and consumption of primary plastic polymers, including their trade, are not regulated and the proposed ‘International Legally Binding Instrument’ only focuses on product design and waste management, it will result in only changing the nature of the beast rather than eliminating it,” said Seshadri.

(Published under Creative Commons from Mongabay India)