Albeit a lot of sitting on the bus, Day 6 was a blast! And yes, I took my cover picture in a pictures-are-okay location within Nouryon!
Our day started with a semi-formal site visit to Nouryon, a chemical company that manufactures organic peroxide and alkyl metals to sell to other companies and individuals who use them in their own products for increased biodegradability and thus sustainability. Nouryon’s Headquarters was around a 1-hour bus ride from our MEININGER hotel in Amsterdam; we loaded all of our luggage onto the bus beforehand and went straight from the site visit to our hotel in Rotterdam. At the start of our site visit, we each got our own personal ID cards–temporary, of course–and watched a presentation about safety and sustainability regulations and efforts at Nouryon. Nouryon then provided us with lunch; I had two mediocre vegan sandwiches and some mango-flavored Fanta. After lunch, we split up into groups walked to a different section of the production factory. Our guide first took us to a building in which the employees dealt with safety, where we were presented a slideshow about all of Nouryon’s chemical safety precautions and testing methods. I learned that most of Nouryon’s chemical experiments are done on runaway reactions, mainly of pyrofonics and alkyls. We all borrowed lab coats and safety glasses and got to watch our host operate the total containment tank (without any chemicals inside of it, of course), which was really cool as we got to see the full-scale size of some of their equipment! I learned that Nouryon recycles its scrap metals and plastics that do not end up being used after some experiments by sending them back to their manufacturer and having them dispose of the material appropriately.
We then walked over to another lab within Nouryon, in which our new guide, Johnathan, was working on testing chemicals for bio-degradability. We learned about his different, sometimes months-long testing processes for certain chemicals. To recycle chemicals that end up being discarded or unused, he makes sure that all non-bio-degradable chemicals are diluted. Based on the bio-degradability of the chemical, Johnathan informs other teams within Nouryon whether to use a certain chemical in their products or not.
Next, we visited Mark’s lab where he worked on testing the toxicity of different chemical compositions based on projects sent in from other Nouryon branchces or personal projects from across the globe. Mark performs certain toxicity tests using fish; Mark claims that he tries to minimize the use of animals in his testing and only uses them when certain data does not already exist online, but cannot avoid testing on the fish as much of Nouryon’s research does not yet have other data to support it. I do not support the idea of testing chemicals on animals and hope that Nouryon can find another cruelty-free, sustainable method to test the toxicity of their chemicals.
After Mark’s lab tour, we headed back to the building in which we started and listened to another presentation about the ways with which Nouryon is maximizing its sustainability efforts. Apart from testing each chemical specifically for bio-degradability and toxicity, Nouryon also has a recycling system which can differentiate materials based on their respecting melt flow index (MFI) in order to recycle them accordingly. I also learned that Europe as a whole is very forward in its sustainability efforts, with regulations such as the mandate that all car manufacturers must make 85% of the car’s weight from reused or recycled material in addition to having 25% of any plastic used to build the car be recycled.
If I learned anything from our Nouryon site visit, it is that the United States still has a lot to catch up on in terms of progressive sustainable ideas in legislation. If the government would force the use of recycled material in certain products, for instance, the rate of carbon emissions would drop significantly and bring us to an appropriate starting point to becoming a greener nation.
After the Nouryon site visit, we journeyed to Rotterdam via sitting in a private bus for 2.5 hours. Our bus driver was quite entertaining! After we landed, we checked into our hotel and split up for dinner. We walked along the nearby streets and found an all-vegetarian Indian restaurant called Urban Tapri. I had an Indo-Chinese combo of veg manchurian and veg hakka noodles along with a plate of pani puri, which was a nice, hot, and well-needed change from bread, hummus, and salad but definitely did not live up to my standards of good Indian food.
Overall, today was a long day that turned out to be fun, informative, and thought-provoking. I am excited to visit the Hague tomorrow!
