Question

The chemical industry is enormous in the industrialized world. How has society benefitted from advances in the chemical industry? What negative effects has the growth of the chemical industry had on society?

Answer 1

Almost everything around us is in some way a product of controlled chemical processes. That is either chemical processes conducted in nature or chemical processes conducted in the chemical industry. In the most developed parts of the world, the products from the chemical industry that completely dominate our lives. These products range from fuels and fertilizers to plastics and pharmaceuticals. To make these products widely available, a huge amount of resources have been invested during the last century to develop the chemical industry to its current level where it is the largest industry worldwide, a cornerstone of contemporary society, and also a platform for further global economic growth. It can be argued that the enormous success of the chemical industry can be attributed to the almost unlimited availability of inexpensive fossil resources, and to a continuously increasing number of catalysts and catalytic processes that make it possible to efficiently transform the fossil resources into all the required compounds and materials.

Benefits:

Biofuels: transportation fuel derived from biomass. A wide range of biomass products such as sugar cane, rapeseed, corn, straw, wood, animal and agriculture residues and waste can be transformed into fuels for transport;

Bioplastics: production of plastic materials using natural sources such as plants, which are then biodegradable;

Insulation: enhanced insulating materials to enable more energy-efficient homes and buildings;

Lightweight plastic composites which help reduce cars and airplanes’ fuel consumption;

Fuel cells: when used to power cars or motorbikes, hydrogen fuel cells produce water vapour instead of exhaust gases;

New lighting technologies (such as Organic Light Emitting Diodes - OLEDS) which produce more light with less electricity;

Wind turbines and solar paneling: both rely on materials produced by the chemical industry. The metal blades of wind turbines have largely been replaced by blades made of fiberglass-reinforced polyester to stand up to the severest weather.

Negative effects:

Creating chemical weapons (Ex: Agent Orange), organophosphates, and pesticides, potent carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, resulted in massive lawsuits (however chemical companies are so massive they are practically immune to lawsuits), caused many deaths, caused international strife on human suffering and health.
Our smart phones, iphones, and comps all use chemicals that can cause cancer, and other disease. Clothing use colors from poisonous dyes. Soda and other drinks sometimes have benzoic acid, sodium benzoate, and sodium metabisulphites, can decompose into molecule that can cause cancer. Alcohol one of the cheapest and most common chemical, causes large amounts of suffering, taxes out healthcare, violence.