UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA

Facultad de ingeniería. Departamento de ingeniería Química y Ambiental

Diseño de Procesos Químicos y Bioquímicos
Bogotá, Colombia
2019-1

Safety is everyone´s business

By Javier Andrés Aponte Zea

On December 3rd 1984 one of the worst events in the history of the chemical industry, and
humanity in general occurred. It was right after midnight in Bhopal in the very heart of India,
when a leak of Methyl Isocyanate (MIC) from a storage which contained more than 40 tons
of one of the most hazardous chemical compounds was found in a factory of pesticidal,
property of one of the biggest chemical enterprises in the world, the Union Carbide Inc. in
an industrial growing zone, where thousands of people lived in very poor conditions. This
was an important date for many locals, there were a lot of celebrations that were taking place
during this night. The leak of this gas caused the worst tragedy in Indian History, causing
more than 20.000 causalities associated directly to the leak, and at least 600.000 people
affected by the event.

The Union Carbide Inc. arrived in India by the middle of 1900´s century, with a small
presence and with the production of batteries; but it was not until the end of the 70´s that a
huge project was issued to stablish a plant of pesticide called Savin, the whole new pesticide
that had great qualities, such as the capability of combat against thousands of plagues,
without representing a hazard for human being. The plant was hold by the mentioned city in
the heart of India, Bhopal, home of an incredible multiculturality, inequality, and thousands
of people who had the dream of rising from the ashes. This plant was constructed there with
the promise of a brilliant future, the face of the industrial revolution in India, the opportunity
for hundreds of people who did not even have the resources in order to live in worthy
conditions. The Savin Plant in Bhopal lead to an important growth of the city and the
population. The Savin Production process was very dangerous, because it needed very
dangerous chemical compounds to be produced, such as the Methyl Isocyanate, phosgene,
Methylamine, among others. This is the reason why the plant had to have an important
security control, and protocols for the management of it. The motto of the company in the
very start of the operation of the plant was Safety is everyone´s business.

Safety is everyone´s business, maybe it can sound cliché, a motto that any enterprise could
say in order to have the operation in their hands. But analyzing it deeply, it does not only talk
about safety, is clear that this is everyone´s business, when they say it is a business, they are
meaning that it represents a benefit for everyone, not only physical or related to health, but
also talking about money. During the Savin Plant Design by Union Carbide, they had a great
model to follow, the Union carbide Institute in West Virginia, a Savin Plant that was able to
produce about 30.000 ton per year in the United States, it was a plant with the top technology,
control systems, safety regulations, which followed all the American Law regarding to safety,
health and security. Nevertheless, the Indian Law was not as strict with these regulations as
The United States were, so they took this as an opportunity to save some resources, some
decisions were taken, and some control systems and safety regulations were avoided in the
design of the plant in Bhopal, that was the very first mistake committed from a very long list
of them. The first one regarding to the fact of not taking the safety as a business. One of the
first steps of developing a successful business is to be sure that all that is needed for this to
work, is possessed, otherwise the risk is higher, and the chance for it to fail is higher. In this
case this “all that is needed”, talking about a very hazardous process even nowadays, was a
very complete safety control system, just like the one in West Virginia, in order not to run
the risk of failure.

Even though the safety control system was not the most efficient one, it could work, and its
objective was accomplished successfully, it was because the philosophy of the company was
leaded to the safety of everyone, the workers and the population of the city. During the time
that the operation was held with this way to think there were just a few accidents produced
because of the negligence of the workers, but not because of a wrong management of the
security.

When a business is going to be developed, an idea has to be followed, people needs to believe
in this idea, and money needs to be invested on it. In the start of the functioning of the plant,
the security of it reunited all these factors, because there was someone who believed in the
idea of having a safe environment inside the plant, this person was the president of the plant
in Bhopal, the engineer Warren Woomer. He used to follow the idea, and believed in it every
time. Furthermore, he made the workers believe in it, even if it was with the most fatidic
examples, which in some cases are the best teachers. The fact that not all the money was
invested in this idea, and it was preferred to save some resources, started to claim causalities
in the plant, so the business was not running in the way it should. But it was not until Warren
Woomer left that the idea stopped being followed and nobody else kept believing on it. The
fact that during the drought in 1983 a lot of the farming industry in India fell down, made the
managers of the plant stop the continuous production, and made the plant work only to cover
the need, that was because farmers in India were not able to pay for pesticides while their
crops were dying because of the drought. The different facts that affected the sales and the
production of the plant made the company had to change the managing of the plant in many
opportunities, this is a very high risk that big companies need to come up against, because it
is very difficult to find the right person to manage a critical plant of production such as the
Savin one in Bhopal, it is difficult because a little change of the way of thinking of people
make high differences in the way of operation of the plant; all this facts lead to stop believing
in the idea of safety in the plant, and a very dangerous thought was spread, a thought that
anything could have happened in a plant that is stopped, what has a huge mistake, that was
an idea that could have been spread only by someone who was not really into the chemical
industry, but more into business and finances; saving resources gets rapidly the philosophy
of the Savin plant, until the point of turning off the most of the control systems in order to
avoid extra waste. This was de idea that lead to one of the worst catastrophes in chemical
industry. Not only because of not having the best control systems, turning off the rest of it
was just a time bomb, in some moment it had to run out of control, and by that moment there
would not be a way back. All this has a simple explanation, money was more important for
managers than people´s lifes.

Safety has become one of the greatest business, and more talking about an industry that
represents that many hazards and dangers. It is not a business that represents a direct amount
of capital in the balances, a lot of money needs to be invested on it, but its real impact does
not appear in the fluxes of capital, so sometimes for people who is more into the business
and finances does not represent a priority, but represents something secondary. But as it is
seen, it becomes in the difference between a healthy place or environment to work at, and a
sick place, where your live is exposed every single day you work there, and the most
important, when your life is in risk, but you are not aware of it. An event such like this in
Bhopal represents millions of dollars in losses in the balances of a company, there is when
the initial investment and the following of the idea makes sense, because it is not only to
invest in safety if your personal do not think it is necessary, because it would be a waste of
resources as it was seen. The three steps need to be followed so as to the idea work, invest
on the idea, follow it and believe in it; in the case that the investment has been done but
nobody believed in the need of safety, anyways that would not work. By the end, safety is a
business that everyone needs to invest on, believe in and follow, because it is directly
associated with the most important resource of a company, the people, and not only the
people of the company, but it can also be related to the people of a whole city or even a
country. An accident can occur anywhere, but they can be avoided by believing in the
business of safety, the most important business in all business.