Average incomes in China are very low by Western standards, and certainly not “middle-class” as the blog discussed yesterday. It is also easy to forget that almost half the population still lives in rural areas. Official data shows their incomes have shown major growth over the past 20 years, but are still less than a third of urban incomes today. The chart […]
Chemicals and the Economy
The journey of the plastic bag
Plastic waste is an issue that doesn’t go away. And, of course, the plastics industry is unfairly blamed for it. After all, the industry does not drop plastic bags on the street, leaving them to go who knows where. Thus the blog welcomes the above spoof documentary from the Santa Monica ‘Heal the Bay’ group. […]
Deepwater Horizon raises ‘licence to operate’ issues
The chemical industry can be very proud of what it has achieved with the Responsible Care programme since 1985. But it may need to consider how this develops, in the light of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. One key question emerged from this week’s US Congressional hearing with the heads of ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell. It […]
Obama’s BP attack will impact chemicals
For the past 20 years, the chemical industry has been making steady progress in improving its environmental, health and safety performance. More recently, security has been added to the list of key items covered by the voluntary Responsible Care initiative, which covers c90% of chemical production. Now, however, this enormously important activity has moved into […]
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