today is the 20 yr anniversary of the chemical accident in bhopal, india. there was an article by C&E News (American Chemicial Society's weekly mag) about this accident and the regulations that grew from it. This has led me to think about a couple of things.
first off, of course the chemistry industry accidents we hear about, they have results that are either immediate or traceable. a bunch of circuit boards fall off a train and nobody cares; of course most people don't think about the fact that without the chemical industry those circuit boards couldn't be made. some people are calling for the chemistry industry to cut immediately to "green" processes (that is, go to using things that can't harm people if they do get released).
second off, i was thinking about the call for outside regulation of the chemical industry's safety. people assume that outside regulation results in better regulation. today we have what are called MSDS (material safety data sheets) which OSHA requires workplaces to have. Good idea, crappy information. if you compare methyl isocyanate (the stuff released in bhopal) with say sodium fluoride (a low sodium salt substitute sold at the grocery store) you wouldn't really be able to tell that one will almost always hurt you while the other will almost always not. the msds also points out another interesting thing in that methyl isocyanate reacts violently with water (forming a variety of gasses) but the msds still calls for washing with lots of water if you spill it on yourself...
finally, i thought about what training are chemists given to react ethically? two weeks ago i was sitting in on a 1st yr graduate level o. chem class and the teacher was talking about how a particular substances reacted with dna (thus destroying the dna and could kill people. she then used the phrase "make things to help people not kill people." and everyone laughed, like that was obvious, people don't kill people. but i don't think that it is that obvious. chemists are asked to make weapons more effective by doing things like making tracer bullets or more powerful explosives (plastic explosives for instance) but are told not to make chemical weapons. what is a non-chemical weapon? i guess an energy weapon could be non-chemical but in order for humans to handle it it has to be made of something which is a chemical. we also synthesize things to kill insects and pathogens. back to chemical spills, we are told to follow certain safety procedures, but in reality many people skip over them, as shown by many accidents. in bhopal safety measures weren't running properly but people continued to run the plant. there is a general attitude of make do with what you have in chemistry and that extends to safety as well.
i think i missed out in not taking an ethics class while in undergrad.
1 comment:
why do you think the labor rate is so low in india, and now china? its because short cuts lower the cost of product in the SHORT TERM. after the plant burns down you just move it to another country that has terrible regulation.
take for example the plant I work at. we have EXCELENT safety rating, one of the highest in the state, and I can personally attest that if you get a bandaid, you have to go see the onsite nurse to get it logged, but our management is still talking about outsourcing. why? because our safety rating doesn't pay the bills, a low cost high yield product is what makes the shareholders happy.
ethics / safety takes too much work. so we'll just convert everything to robot labor on the moon, or some other place that if something goes wrong no 'human' wil be harmed, thus we'll live poorly ever after. ethicly superiour, and set to live ripe old ages with all of our limbs, both eyes, two lungs.
seriously, its the chemists fault for coming up with such dangerous process's!
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