PACKAGING INSIGHTS

NGOs and community groups have launched a new lawsuit against Ineos’s plastics facility in Antwerp, Belgium, and warn of fracking health issues, accelerated carbon emissions, and early deaths from pollution. We speak to Ineos and environmental charity ClientEarth to hear more about this latest lawsuit. 

Project One, which is currently under construction, is an ethane cracker representing the largest investment in the European chemical sector in over 25 years. The plant will produce ethylene, a key chemical building block for industries such as packaging, automotive, building materials, and medical devices. 

When the Chemical Safety Board revealed how Jose Wilfredo Perez Jr. died last year trying to flee a toxic plume of hydrogen sulfide wafting through Pemex’s Deer Park oil refinery, the federal agency offered Houstonians their first detailed look at the tragedy. 

CSB investigators discovered that Perez, a 28-year-old contractor, and a colleague hadn’t carried respirators while completing less-toxic work in a unit about 250 feet downwind of the chemical release. The pair started running only once they heard alarms, which did not sound right after the release began. 

Perez was later found on the ground, “fatally injured from hydrogen sulfide poisoning,” the federal oversight agency said in a March 2025 update.