{"id":4882,"date":"2015-06-16T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-16T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www-prod.greenpeace.org\/usa\/chemical-disasters\/"},"modified":"2024-11-21T03:42:16","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T03:42:16","slug":"chemical-disasters","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/toxics\/issues\/chemical-disasters\/","title":{"rendered":"The Threat of Chemical Disasters"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class='p4descriptive_paragraph'>Disaster after disaster has made it clear: unsafe chemical plants are a hazard to communities and a long-term threat to health. But it doesn&#8217;t have to be this way. Safer chemicals and processes are not only available, they\u2019re more cost-effective. <\/span><\/p>\n<figure class='wp-block-image size-large p4featured_image'><img src='https:\/\/storage.googleapis.com\/planet4-usa-stateless\/2024\/11\/97af3a22-gp02jdk-west-texas.jpg' alt='Texas Chemical Plant Explosion Aftermath' \/><figcaption class='wp-element-caption'>Workers with heavy equipment sift through the smoldering wreckage of the Magnablend Inc. chemical facility in Waxahachie, Texas in 2011.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Bhopal, India<\/h2>\n<p>On the night of December 2, 1984, a pesticide plant in Bhopal, India leaked 40 tons of deadly methyl isocynate gas into the city. 8,000 people died in the first few days following the leak, and 20,000 in total have died in the years since. Those still living in the area are exposed to toxic chemicals in their water and soil, contributing to cancer, birth defects, and chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n<p>Though this disaster happened more than 25 years ago, the threat of another Bhopal is real.<\/p>\n<h2>West, Texas<\/h2>\n<p>Chemical incidents occur frequently in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, an explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas killed 15 people, injured hundreds, and leveled an entire neighborhood. There have been over 400 chemical incidents since West, Texas. Disaster after disaster has made it clear: unsafe chemical plants are a hazard to communities and a long-term threat to health.<\/p>\n<h2>Preventing Chemical Disasters<\/h2>\n<p>Chemical plant incidents like this are deadly, but they\u2019re preventable.<\/p>\n<p>Safer chemicals and processes are not only available, they\u2019re more cost-effective. Greenpeace helped create the Coalition to Prevent Chemical Disasters, a diverse coalition of more than 100 environmental justice groups, major unions, public health organizations, environmental groups, and national security experts united in calling for prevention-based policies that require safer chemicals or processes wherever feasible.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Prevent Chemical Disasters\" href=\"http:\/\/preventchemicaldisasters.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Learn more about the movement to make chemical plants safer<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Disaster after disaster has made it clear: unsafe chemical plants are a hazard to communities and a long-term threat to health. But it doesn&#8217;t have to be this way. Safer chemicals and processes are not only available, they\u2019re more cost-effective. Workers with heavy equipment sift through the smoldering wreckage of the Magnablend Inc. chemical facility [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":5855,"parent":4884,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"p4_hide_page_title_checkbox":"","p4_title":"","p4_subtitle":"","p4_description":"","background_image_id":"","background_image":"","p4_button_title":"","p4_button_link":"","p4_button_link_checkbox":"","p4_og_title":"","p4_og_description":"","p4_og_image":"","p4_og_image_id":"","p4_seo_canonical_url":"","p4_campaign_name":"","p4_local_project":"","p4_basket_name":"","p4_department":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[219],"tags":[188],"class_list":["post-4882","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-toxics-campaign","tag-toxics"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Threat of Chemical Disasters - Greenpeace<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.greenpeace.org\/usa\/toxics\/issues\/chemical-disasters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Threat of Chemical Disasters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Disaster after disaster has made it clear: unsafe chemical plants are a hazard to communities and a long-term threat to health. 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