Areport in these columns earlier this month said at least two people were killed and almost a dozen injured when a fire broke out in a chemical factory in Panchmahal district in Gujarat. Ten others sustained burn injuries when the fire broke out in the Gujarat Fluoro Chemical Limited’s Ranjit Nagar Plant, the report said (The Statesman, 17 December). This accident has once again brought the need for industrial safety into focus.

It bears recall that the Andhra Pradesh High Court had ordered sealing of the South Korean LG Polymer plant and its premises and asked the directors of the firm not to leave the country without its nod after an accident last year. The high-powered committee set up by the Andhra Pradesh government to probe the gas leakage was headed by the special chief secretary of the environment and forest department, N K Prasad.

In its report submitted to the chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy, the committee unequivocally placed the blame on L G Polymers, the South Korean company for poor safety protocol and awareness, breakdown of emergency response and inadequate safety management which led to the accident last year, caused the death of 15 people and affected thousands who inhaled the toxic vapor of chemical styrene.

The committee also recommended that the report should be placed in public domain and respective authorities should be informed to take necessary legal action against those responsible for the disaster. Styrene is primarily used in the production of polystyrene plastics and resins. While local groups clamored for closure of the LG polymer plant, political parties squarely blamed the management for this accident and sought prosecution of senior officials of the company.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) had already taken cognizance of this matter and ordered the chemical plant to deposit a penalty of Rs 50 crore with the District Collector of Visakhapatnam. The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) monitored the relief and rescue operations. According to the investigation report, it transpires that a technical glitch in the refrigeration unit attached to the styrene tanks was presumably responsible for the gas leakage.

Close on the heels of the Visakhapatnam tragedy, seven people had been admitted to hospital due to toxic gas leakage from a paper factory in Raigarh. It bears recall that an international conference on waste management and recycling concluded some time back with particular focus on chemical safety, waste disposal and recycling technology transfer.

Chemical safety and its sustainable management assume alarming proportions in India. The huge chemical pollution in Ganga river for decades is a matter of grave concern. Waste discharge from a large number of factories including pharmaceuticals, chemicals, paper mills, leather, sugar and cotton industries, have aggravated the situation. It is extremely unfortunate that the sacred river is being used as a drain. The tragic gas leak at Visakhapatnam brought back grim memories of the Bhopal Gas tragedy.

On 2 December 1984, Bhopal city in India experienced the worst disaster in the world resulting from the leakage of a highly toxic chemical gas, methyl isocyanate commonly known as MIC. Thousands died and several thousand were blinded. The accident in a gas pipeline in Nagaram, AP, on 27 June 2014 claimed the lives of 29 people, and injured vast numbers.

On 15 March 2017, ammonia gas leakage in Kanpur, UP resulted in loss of many lives. Overall, there have been at least 130 incidents of chemical accidents in India including leakage from a nuclear power plant. With rapid industrialisation in India, problems of occupational health and safety have assumed alarming proportions. The rate of industrial accidents is much higher than in any other industrialized country. It is thus imperative to initiate thorough, effective and meaningful measures for safety of all inhabitants of our nation including workers and personnel attached to the chemical industries.

Thousands of textile workers in India suffer from lung disease due to cotton dust, about 20,000 asbestos workers are victims of lung cancer, in the absence of personal protective equipment. Hazards from silica, mica, Polynuclear Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) etc. also pose dangers to health.

Almost all developing countries are confronting chemical safety and waste disposal problems. A large legacy of abandoned hazardous sites, unregulated waste dumping and low priority given to environmental issues is part of the history of our country. India must take chemical safety and waste disposal issues very seriously and develop more cogent ideas for underground disposal, considering its technical barriers, legal environment, waste characterization and conditioning. This includes assessment of isolation of chemical waste safely from the environment and the development of sophisticated eco-friendly technologies.

Even waste chemicals from the laboratories of school, colleges, universities, research institutions and hospitals must be handled very carefully and disposed of with great care. In educational institutions, little or no education and training is imparted on chemical safety. There are different ways to achieve disposal, especially for chemical waste from pharmaceutical factories and processing plants. They encompass incineration, chemical waste recycling, chemical neutralization and land disposal.

Adequate measures should be taken to ensure recycling and safety of chemical waste. The waste should not be allowed to  contaminate oceans, rivers andambient air. Although millions of chemical compounds are known, only a small number have been tested as far as their toxicity is concerned. Chemical hazards may occur during the storage of ingredients, transportation, manufacture, handling, experimentation or even during the disposal of waste products.

Toxic chemicals may be in the form of gases, liquids, solids or dust. The chemicals often find their entry into bodies of humans during breathing, swallowing or after coming in contract with the skin. Inhalation or breathing process is perhaps the most common route through which toxic chemical substances enter our body and mix with the bloodstream.

Some corrosive chemical ingredients may be responsible for acute skin diseases. Prolonged exposure to certain carcinogenic chemicals may lead to cancer. The problem of occupational health hazards is not confined within the four walls of factories. It has been reported that chemical hazards can often lead to abortion, low fertility or even impotence.

Some chemicals are responsible for birth defects in new born babies. Prolonged exposure to lead, mercury, organic lead compound and radiation from x-rays, carbon monoxide, chloroprene used in the manufacture of rubber, cadmium, chromates, fiber glass, silica, pesticides etc. can cause occupational hazards to workers of chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Quantification of the leak of toxic chemicals should be carried out continuously with sophisticated equipment. In addition, uninterrupted monitoring is also imperative to avoid accidents. The pragmatic use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deployment of robots should be considered to get tangible results.

The nature of nuclear waste, produced in nuclear power plants is different and may raise specific problems of disposal. Their toxic effects on living organisms are imperceptible. Slowly but steadily, they may pollute the environment if no precautionary measures are adopted from the beginning. We should try to keep the earth free from chemical, radioactive and other pollution and maintain ecological balance to provide a decent, sustainable habitat not only for future generations but also for all living creatures of the world.

(The writer, a former Reader in Chemistry, Presidency College, Kolkata was
associated with the UGC and UNICEF)