Export inherent safety NOT risk

The author presents a personal view that production of bulk chemicals and the attendant risks are being transferred from developed to developing nations. Some evidence is presented on the transfer of production. The transferred risk is increased because of the larger scale plants that are now built in locales that are less able to cope with the increased hazards. Bhopal was an example of an inherently unsafe plant, with major hazards that could have been avoided or drastically reduced by design. It behoves the industry to adopt the inherently safer philosophy and practice in the new plants that it builds, in order to minimise the opportunity for another accident like Bhopal and the threat to our industry that such an accident would pose.