From toxic waste to the unpronounceables on your food labels, chemicals are all around and within us. Here you will find CorpWatch coverage of the range of issues involving chemicals, including pesiticides, the widespread use of petrochemicals, health and environmental impacts, and the role of chemicals in bioengineered agriculture.
For most of its eight-decade history, Nalco has quietly gone about its business of producing specialty chemicals for water treatment and industrial processes. It had a higher profile in the 1970s when it challenged federal efforts to phase out the use of lead in gasoline and one of its subsidiaries was charged with botching the safety testing of drugs and chemicals.
South African-based Sasol (South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation) is an integrated energy and chemicals company in the business of mining, oil, gas, and chemical production. It uses a proprietary process to convert coal and gas into liquid fuels and chemicals.
The Archer Daniels Midland Corporation (ADM) has been the most prominent recipient of corporate welfare in recent U.S. history. ADM and its chairman Dwayne Andreas have lavishly fertilized both political parties with millions of dollars in handouts and in return have reaped billion-dollar windfalls from taxpayers and consumers.
The Scotts Company is the world's leading supplier and marketer of consumer products for do-it-yourself lawn and garden care. It also supplies a range of products for professional horticulture. Scotts owns the leading brands in every major category in virtually all of the countries where it has a significant presence.
Scotts enjoys a de facto monopoly on lawn care and garden products in the US.
Braskem S.A. is the largest Brazilian petrochemical company with head office in São Paulo. The company was formed in 2002 as part of a major restructuring of the Brazilian petrochemical industry which saw Copene merge with petrochemical companies controlled by Odebrecht, a heavy engineering and construcution company owned by the Odebrecht family, and another family-owned conglomerate, the Mariani Group.
Braskem operates 13 chemical plants with a production capacity of 5 million tons per year of chemical and petrochemical products.
BASF Aktiengesellschaft (BASF) is the second largest transnational chemical company that comprises the parent company, BASF Aktiengesellschaft of Ludwigshafen, Germany, and 327 consolidated subsidiaries. The Company operates more than 150 production sites. It's primary products include chemicals, plastics, performance products, agricultural products & nutrition, and oil & gas. Behind Dow Chemical BASF is one of the worlds largest suppliers of inorganics, herbicides, insecticides, cosmetics and more recently biotechnology and genetically modified foods.
Bayer AG is credited as inventing aspirin as well as many controversial drugs such as heroin, Ciproxin and Baycol. Bayer AG is a massive German based chemicals and pharmaceuticals manufacturer. It has operations in most countries worldwide and had global sales for 2007 of 32.4 billion euro. Its operations are divided into three sectors: Health, Agriculture and Polymers (plastics, synthetic rubber).
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DuPont is the third-largest chemical maker in the U.S., behind only Dow and Exxon Mobil Chemicals. In addition to chemicals, Dupont produces genetically modified seeds, synthetic fibres, coatings, electronics and security devices. DuPont's revenues totalled over $26.6 billion in 2005.
