A question of perception

The chemical industry might be one of the distinguishing features of modern societies, but it goes back a surprisingly long way. It even has its own livery company in the City of London. Alongside ancient crafts like the fletchers and founders is the Salters Company, originally formed in the 14th century by those who traded in salt and other substances.

The company, now devoted to the teaching of chemistry, was recently the host for a lecture by Chemical Industries Association chairman Robin Paul, on the problems of getting the public to trust the industry. Apt, because way back in the 1300s, the art of salting was known as a 'mystery'. And to the general public, that's exactly what the chemical industry still is.

Paul, a former chairman of inorganic chemicals firm Albright & Wilson, kept up the medieval theme in his speech: when he took up the chairmanship of the CIA in 1995, he said, it was 'almost heretical to speak up for the record of the chemical industry.' He also harked back to his first experiences of the industry, as a schoolboy in the 1950s visiting Albright & Wilson's phosphorus works: 'There I saw scenes out of Dante's Inferno, as molten slag was tapped from the phosphorus furnaces, the air was full of choking smoke and fumes with men holding white cloths over their faces. Terrific!'

Or not so terrific. After all, even though everyone within the industry knows that things have changed beyond recognition since then, it seems the general public still think of the industry in these terms. And worryingly, Paul pointed out, this isn't just a case of scientific illiteracy.

Every year for the past quarter of a century, the CIA has commissioned a poll on how it is perceived by the public, taking into account factors such as age, gender, location and education. The most recent showed that, although educated people tend to give the industry more credit for its record of employee safety and its contribution to the economy, they still don't trust it. This, Paul conjectured, could be due to the rise in environmentalism: 'Among young people especially, environmentalism is a worldwide phenomenon and the chemical industry is losing the battle for the hearts and minds of these increasingly influential people.'

The gathered great-and-good attending the lecture had mixed views as to why this should be. 'The public knows that the environment is a closed system,' suggested Till Medinger of Zeneca. 'They appreciate that the industry is pumping novel substances into the environment and once they're there, there's nothing that can be done to remove them.' Others noted that every time a new substance is released into the environment, it constitutes a test nobody knows how these substances will act, because no test can simulate long-term behaviour. And some substances, thought to be innocuous, such as CFCs, have since been found to be anything but.

Occurrences like this are inevitably raised by environmental and other pressure groups; the choice issue was used in a recent Greenpeace campaign. Paul noted that the fear of chemicals causing cancer 'is a recurring theme in the well-meaning campaigns of environmental pressure groups,' stressing that he meant no slight by 'well-meaning' although bemoaning the fact that such campaigns are occasionally based on less-than-sound science. These are all possible explanations why pointing out the benefits of chemicals doesn't seem to have any effect.

So if education won't work, what will? It appears to be not so much a matter of knowledge as of attitude. Industry leaders now seem to recognise that people in general have a distorted view of risk. 'More people every year are killed riding horses than riding motorbikes,' said Ian Fells, professor of energy conservation at Newcastle University. 'Most parents wouldn't dream of buying their kids a motorbike, but they'll happily put them on the back of a ton of dangerous animal.' And, of course, most of the country will happily enter the National Lottery, because they know that, despite the 14million-to-one odds against winning, someone lands the jackpot every week.

The extra factor here, as several people pointed out, is choice. People choose to play the lottery, ride horses, smoke, and do other things which statistically speaking constitute outrageous risks. But they can't choose to avoid the chemical industry. Many do exercise some degree of choice, such as by buying organic vegetables, but everyone buys food wrapped in plastic, uses paint, wears dyed clothes... and breathes the air.

This is not an abstract problem. It hits industry where it hurts straight in the pocket. 'There is the danger that the investment which creates jobs and wealth could shift to other parts of the world,' said Paul. 'Think of the cost of a planning application deferred by the NIMBY effect,' as demonstrated recently with the cancellation of the Pembroke Orimulsion project. 'Think of the legal fees and the value of management time absorbed defending a far-fetched legal action which attains credibility through disregard of sound science among the magistrature.' And that's bad news for the whole process industry; not just the operators, but also the equipment suppliers and contractors.