What the Ohio Train Derailment Says About the Dark Side of Plastics
Zahra Hirji | February 15, 2023 | Bloomberg
A Norfolk Southern Corp. train carrying hazardous materials derailed in fiery fashion on the night of Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio. The risk of some of those dangerous materials exploding prompted officials to allow the train operator to run what’s called a “controlled explosion” on Feb. 6, releasing known carcinogens and a plume of black smoke into the air. Although local residents and businesses were evacuated beforehand and have since been allowed back, many remain hesitant to return home.
Environmental and public health advocates also raised concerns after chemicals contaminated local waterways that feed into the Ohio River. A federal investigation into what caused the crash is ongoing, as is environmental monitoring inside and outside Ohio. EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced on Wednesday that he will head to East Palestine on Thursday to visit the disaster scene and meet with residents and emergency responders. The disaster highlights the dangers of the world’s growing reliance on plastics, which two key chemicals of concern — vinyl chloride and butyl acrylate — are used to make.
“This tragedy reminds us we have to pay attention not to just what happens to plastic when you are done with it, but the whole life cycle of using massive amounts of toxic chemicals that have to be transported all over the world to make plastic products,” says Judith Enck, a former administrator at the US Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration and now an advocate against plastic pollution.
1. What do we know about the train and how it crashed?
Around 9 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3, an eastbound Norfolk Southern Railway freight train coming from Madison, Illinois and heading to Conway, Pennsylvania derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. The train was carrying a mix of items including malt liquor, frozen vegetables and five main hazardous chemicals:
ethylene glycol monobutyl ether
ethylhexyl acrylate
isobutylene
butyl acrylate
vinyl chloride
Of the train’s 150 cars, 38 of them derailed and an additional 12 were damaged by a fire that lasted for days; 11 of the 20 cars carrying hazardous materials derailed, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. There were no fatalities or injuries in the derailment and fire. Investigations into what exactly caused the derailment are ongoing, but surveillance video footage shows the bottom of one rail car overheating beforehand. “Engineers from the NTSB Materials Laboratory will examine the rail car wheel and axle that potentially experienced a mechanical issue,” NTSB spokesperson Jennifer Gabris wrote in an email to Bloomberg Green.
2. What’s a controlled explosion and why was there one?
In the days following the crash, at least one train car carrying toxic materials started to experience a dramatic rise in pressure. This prompted concerns of a possible “catastrophic explosion” that could send a deadly spray of shrapnel across a wide area. To prevent this from happening, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Norfolk Southern and others decided to perform a controlled explosion of five cars carrying chemicals including vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen. It’s unknown how much of the vinyl chloride, which is used to make polyvinyl chloride that’s found in many plastic products, and other chemical materials leaked into the environment ahead of the explosion or during it. Roughly 4,700 people live in East Palestine.
Residents and businesses within a few miles of East Palestine in both Ohio and Pennsylvania were evacuated ahead of time. Following this explosion on Monday, Feb. 6, residents were allowed to return home starting Wednesday, Feb. 8.
3. What do we know about air contamination?
The EPA conducted a range of air monitoring in the wake of the crash, including real-time air monitoring using stationary devices set up around the disaster zone and East Palestine community, roving monitoring using hand-held devices and aerial monitors using an ASPECT (Airborne Spectral Photometric Environmental Collection Technology) plane. Only particulate matter was detected above the screening levels, and no chemicals or gases were identified at a hazardous level. By the evening of Feb. 13, the EPA had discontinued its community-level air monitoring for phosgene and hydrogen chloride, which can be produced when vinyl chloride combusts. The EPA has been monitoring for chemicals known to be on the train, as well other materials that those chemicals can break down into or generate upon combustion.
In conjunction with Norfolk Southern, the EPA also screened the air inside 396 homes and found “no detections” of vinyl chloride or hydrogen chloride; 100 homes still need to be tested.
But this doesn’t mean there weren’t chemicals in the air, possibly at dangerous levels. In one of the EPA’s daily updates, the agency noted that “residents in the area and tens of miles away may smell odors coming from the site,” a result of the byproducts of the controlled burn having a low odor threshold. Public health experts also warn that testing indoor air quality isn’t sufficient, especially a week after an event, when chemicals and gases may have dissipated. “What they have to test is the furniture, the rugs, anything that will absorb contaminants,” says Enck. The EPA did not respond to questions about whether it was testing furniture by the time of publication.
