To your average citizen, the chemical factory represents a dangerous place full of substances they don’t understand, but often they fail to realise the impact of those chemicals on their day-to-day lives.
But it is important to demonstrate to people how many chemicals we deal with in the home, says Dr Mike Booth, director of information resources at the Chemical and Allied Industries’ Association (CAIA). Eliminating the chemicals can strip a room bare, literally.
“There was a wonderful exhibition that they had at the Project Eden biosphere exhibition in England,” says CAIA Responsible Care manager Liz van der Merwe. “They had a model of a furnished house and then removed all the things that chemicals have impacted on, and you were virtually left with a bare room.”
With chemicals so crucial to so many manufacturing processes all over the world, chemical safety is an absolute imperative, and acknowledging best practice is vital to encourage improved levels of safety. This is why the Greening the Future Awards recognise chemical safety every year.
South African Fine and Industrial Chemicals (Safic), a manufacturing company, has won this award for two years running for its “consistent devotion” to chemical safety. This award is sponsored by the CAIA, the South African custodian of Responsible Care, a worldwide initiative aimed at encouraging chemical safety.
Safic is a certified chemical blender that manufactures products for metal treatment cleaning, electrical maintenance cleaning and office maintenance among others.
The CAIA was set up as the agency to implement Responsible Care in South Africa in 1994. Since then the Responsible Care initiative has grown considerably and now boasts 132 signatories from the CAIA’s 185 member companies.
Van der Merwe says signatories receive guidance documents from the CAIA, as well as constant feedback on international and local best practice and safety interventions.
The CAIA also rewards chemical health, safety and environmental excellence with its own Responsible Care award, which is based on improvements shown in the quantitative data collected annually from members to assess safety variables and any chemical safety interventions they have implemented.
“The quantitative indicators reported to CAIA annually are things like: How many people do you employ? How many accidents have you had? How many casualties have you had? How much waste do you produce? How much toxic waste do you produce? How much electricity do you use? How much water do you use? How much gas do you use? — things that can measure the performance of an industry,” says Van der Merwe.
Booth says the judging process has become a lot more rigorous in the past few years. Companies that have impressed the CAIA in the past include the Lanxess Merebank chemical plant, which significantly reduced its sulphur dioxide emissions.
Another was Improchem, which developed the Portafeed system for packaging products to decrease the risk of spillage during transportation. The robust Portafeed containers are filled with product and transported to customers who use the product directly without decanting. The empty containers are returned for re-use.
Booth says one of the biggest challenges the chemical industry faces in terms of safety is the use of hauliers to carry chemicals. “The guys who drive those trucks are not well-versed in chemistry. They have to be closely supervised when they are taking a chemical load.
Van der Merwe says other major challenges are training and the outsourcing of labour. “It’s a huge challenge,” she says. “When they get contractors in, the companies are responsible to make sure that they have been trained to the same standards as their own workers.”
“We’ve got some very dedicated people out there working for very good companies, who encourage Responsible Care in every way that they can,” says Booth. “Responsible Care is all about continuous improvement.”