Petrochemicals exports from the Houston Ship Channel

The Houston Ship Channel in the south of the US is an 80 kilometre waterway surrounded by over 600 industrial plants that convert oil and gas into chemicals that form the building blocks of products such as plastics, fertiliser and pesticides. These facilities operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, spewing toxic pollution into the air and water, harming human health, the environment and the climate.

The people who live, work and go to school alongside this polluting industry are exposed daily to a toxic cocktail of hazardous chemicals in the air they breathe. Chemical odours routinely seep into homes and schools, while residents are kept awake at night by the loud rumbling of industry. These communities are comprised of disproportionately low-income, racialised people and people with limited English proficiency, a form of racism known as environmental racism.

For Amnesty International, Profundo mapped the supply chain of petrochemical products from the ExxonMobil Baytown complex and LyondellBasell’s Channelview complex in the Houston Ship Channel in Texas to customers in the European Union market.