Chemical industry in China: The current status, safety problems, and pathways for future sustainable development

Chao Chen,Genserik Reniers

doi:10.1016/j.ssci.2020.104741

Abstract

Safety risks have become an obstacle to the sustainability of the chemical industry in China since many chemical companies were forced to close down by China’s government in the past three years. This study investigates chemical safety in China in order to identify the causes of the major accidents and accompanying casualties, formulating the safety management needs to develop a sustainable chemical industry in China. First, we analyze the evolution and current status of China’s chemical industry to identify possible safety issues rooted in the industry. Second, a thorough accident investigation is conducted based on official statistics and collected chemical accidents in China in the period 2004–2019. Furtherly, the main laws, regulations, guidelines, standards and measures related to chemical safety are analyzed and compared with those in Europe. According to analyses related to the chemical industry, chemical accidents and safety legislation and measures in China and Europe, the current problems with respect to chemical safety in China are discussed systematically. Based on research findings, we propose recommendations for the improvement of chemical safety so as to promote the sustainable development of the chemical industry in China. This study also provides basic data and information for future studies on the safety and sustainability of the chemical industry and major accident prevention in other countries.

Highlights

China’s chemical industry has been the largest in the world in view of revenue since 2011, contributing half of the growth of the world chemical market over the past two decades (Hong et al, 2019)
The research questions are as follows: (i) Why are so many major accidents occurring in China? (ii) Why are so many casualties caused by major accidents in China? and (iii) What are possible future pathways of sustainable development of the chemical industry in China? Based on the research findings, this study provides suggestions for future safety management and sustainable development in the chemical industry within China and for other countries with a quickly developing chemical industry
In order to promote the sustainable development of the chemical industry in China, this study investigated the chemical industry, chemical accidents, and chemical safety policies in China

Summary

Introduction

China’s chemical industry (around $1.5 trillion of sales in 2017) has been the largest in the world in view of revenue since 2011, contributing half of the growth of the world chemical market over the past two decades (Hong et al, 2019). Chemical plants consisting of hundreds and sometimes thousands of hazardous installations situated next to each other are usually characterized by high complexity and interdependencies (Cozzani et al, 2005; Reniers and Cozzani, 2013; Chen et al, 2019a; Zeng et al, 2019). Once a major accident occurs in a chemical industrial area, it may result in huge property losses, casualties, severe environmental pollution as well as ecological and ethical problems (Yang et al, 2018; Yang et al, 2019; Chen et al, 2020)

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