Great Lakes Chemical Corporation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Great Lakes Chemical Corporation is a chemical research, production, sales and distribution company that produces specialty chemicals used for polymers, fire suppressants and retardants, pool and spa water purification systems and various other applications. Since 2005 it has been part of Chemtura Corporation.
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[edit] History
Great Lakes Chemical Company was founded in Michigan in 1936 to extract bromine from underground salt water brine deposits. It was acquired by McClanahan Oil in 1948 and rechristened Great Lakes Oil and Chemical Company, but by 1960 the company had moved away from oil and gas, instead focusing on the research and production of bromine-based chemicals. At about this time the company assumed its current name (Great Lakes Chemical Corporation) and built the world's largest bromine plant in southern Arkansas.
Great Lakes grew through the following decades, acquiring several smaller companies in its market and establishing its world headquarters in West Lafayette, Indiana. Among those acquired by Great Lakes was BioLab in 1996, a producer of pool and spa products.
In July 2005, Great Lakes merged with Crompton Corporation (formerly Crompton and Knowles) to form Chemtura Corporation, headquartered in Middlebury, Connecticut.
The ticker symbol for Great Lakes on the New York Stock Exchange was GLK.
[edit] Environmental Record
Great Lakes is the largest producer of methyl bromide in the U.S. Great Lakes creates more than 40 million pounds annually in their Magnolia, Arkansas plants. Its bromine business has made the company the number one polluter in Arkansas based on the 1994 Toxic Release Inventory data. The company was also fined $190,000 for water pollution in Arkansas in 1994. Great Lakes was fined $1.3 million for environmental violations in 1991 in Florida alone. Great Lakes Chemical's involvement in the bromine business had its roots in leaded gasoline. When tetraethyl lead was invented as a gasoline additive back in the 1920s, it turned out that it left a corrosive byproduct in the engine. The solution that scientists found was to add a chemical called ethylene dibromide to the mix. As leaded gasoline began to be phased out and then banned in many countries, Great Lakes developed international markets for its deadly product. Indeed, today, the only remaining private sector corporation producing and marketing is a Great Lakes' company, Associated Octel.[1] In 1995, TEL accounted for nearly half of all Great Lakes' profits. The globalization of leaded gasoline has made TEL responsible for nearly 90 percent of airborne lead pollution in Third World cities today. When burned, the EDB in leaded gasoline produces methyl bromide. The World Meterological Organization has determined that the continuing exhaust from automobiles using leaded gasoline is one of the three potentially major sources of atmospheric methyl bromide.[2] In other words, in addition to poisoining people, Great Lakes' leaded gasoline destroys the ozone.[3]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Great Lakes Chemical Corporation - Company History
- ^ Who still makes tetraethyl lead ?
- ^ CorpWatch : Great Lakes Chemical Corporation
