Archived press release

'new' ici faces same old environmental challenges

23 May 2001

At ICI's Annual General Meeting today - where the company will announce it has successfully “reinvented” itself - Friends of the Earth will challenge the company not to produce chemicals which build-up in the human body and the environment or interfere with the human hormone system. At the meeting, Friends of the Earth will welcome the company's commitment to substantially reduce the release of cancer-causing chemicals,reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set a target for buying renewable energy.

Over recent years ICI has divested itself of its most polluting factories in Teesside and in Runcorn, Cheshire. It's factories in these areas featured in Friends of the Earth's Factory Watch Campaign list of the top 10 factories releasing most cancer-causing chemicals. Instead of producing 'bulk chemicals' the company now produces speciality chemicals for consumer uses, such as food, flavour and fragrance ingredients. However, the European Commission is committed to drafting new laws to better protect the public from chemicals in consumer products which build-up in the body or interfere with the hormone system. Impacts thought to be associated with hormone disrupting chemicals include testicular and prostrate cancer, as well as falling sperm counts and girls entering puberty earlier.

ICI is still facing problems from its past pollution, for example a number of people living near to it old waste dump in Weston have suffered kidney damage due to gases escaping and leaking into their homes.

Mike Childs, Campaigns Director at Friends of the Earth, said:

“ICI is to some extent a different company to that named and shamed by Friends of the Earth in the past. However, it still has to live up to enormous environmental challenges, such as operating in a world which needs to substantially reduce the release of greenhouse gas emissions and where the public will not accept the production of chemicals which build-up in their bodies or the environment. While ICI is moving in the right direction, its transformation can not be complete until it becomes a world leader in green chemistry and sustainable development.”

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust