<
https://orionmagazine.org/article/east-palestine-train-derailment-plastics-history/>
"THE TRAIN THAT DERAILED NEAR THE Ohio-Pennsylvania border in February 2023 was
hauling mixed frozen vegetables. It was hauling malt liquor and semolina flour
as well as chemicals used to make plastics. Chemicals like vinyl chloride
monomer. Think of vinyl chloride like metaphorical railcars. When coupled
end-on-end-on-end, they make up the long-haul train that is polyvinyl chloride
(PVC) plastic, which the manifest suggests other cars on the actual ill-fated
train were also carrying.
PVC is garden hoses. Is water pipes. Is shower curtains. Is siding and decking
and flooring and toys. It is medical tubing and IV bags. And for the
audiophiles among you, it is records, also called vinyl, even when sometimes
pressed from polystyrene.
Vinyl chloride is a carcinogen. Burning vinyl chloride, like burning PVC
plastic, creates the conditions to form even more potent chemicals called
dioxins.
Multiple companies make PVC plastics. The PVC on the derailed train was carried
in cars tagged ROIX, which in railroad speak means the cars were owned by a
company called Shintech. Shintech—“the world’s largest producer of PVC”—is a
wholly owned subsidiary of the Japanese firm, Shin-Etsu. In the U.S., it
operates PVC plants in Freeport, Texas, and in Addis and Plaquemine, Louisiana.
Multiple companies make vinyl chloride. Norfolk Southern was carrying vinyl
chloride in at least two cars traceable (the car ID, OCPX) to OxyVinyls, a
division of OxyChem, which is a division of Occidental Petroleum. OxyVinyl’s
vinyl chloride plant is in Deer Park, Texas, near the Houston Ship Channel,
where a tornado ripped through earlier this year, knocking the plant
temporarily offline.
Sometimes vinyl chloride and PVC factories cluster together, says Jim Vallette
of Material Research, who has mapped the industry. For example, the companies
Olin and Dow each supply vinyl chloride to Shintech’s neighboring Louisiana and
Texas PVC plants, Vallette told me.
Other times, the railroad is how vinyl chloride is ferried to distant PVC
plants, and then how finished PVC gets to its molders and fabricators."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
