Rein in pollution by chemicals industry

The chemicals industry rarely features in public debates about climate and pollution. Oil refineries and coal plants draw the headlines. Yet the chemicals sector accounts for roughly 3.3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent every year, is the source of some of the most persistent toxins in water supply, and has for decades returned contaminated effluent to rivers and aquifers while the world looked elsewhere.

This is not a story of simple negligence. The industry produces the medicines that fill hospital dispensaries, the materials that make solar panels possible, and the compounds that underpin modern agriculture. The problem is not what it makes. It is how it makes it, and how long the true costs have been passed quietly onto ecosystems, communities, and future generations.

Decarbonising chemicals is among the hardest challenges in the net zero transition. The sector faces two carbon problems at once: fossil fuels burned for intense process heat, and carbon physically embedded in the fossil feedstocks from which thousands of products are derived. Solving both requires electrifying process heat, shifting to bio-based raw materials, and developing synthesis routes that work at lower temperatures.

India sits at the centre of this. The third largest emitter from the chemicals sector globally, its fertilizer industry runs largely on natural gas and coal. Indian conglomerates have announced net zero targets, but credible transition road maps for their chemicals divisions remain scarce. The gap between ambition and action will not close without enforceable policy.

For every kilogram of active pharmaceutical ingredient produced, the industry generates between 25 and 100 kilograms of waste. Solvents are the largest contributor. Many are carcinogenic, acutely toxic, or environmentally persistent. India produces roughly 20% of the world’s generic medicines, making its exposure acute and largely unacknowledged.

The industrial zones near Hyderabad gained international notoriety after researchers found extreme levels of antibiotics, such as ciprofloxacin, in local waterways at concentrations thousands of times above safe limits. These “antibiotic soups” create a dangerous breeding ground for drug-resistant bacteria, posing a global health threat. While recent government crackdowns have led to plant closures in regions such as Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat, the persistent risk of pharmaceutical pollution means that strict, constant monitoring is still essential to ensure public safety.

The European Union has expanded its restricted solvents list. The United States moved in 2024 to phase out one of the most widely used hazardous solvents in pharmaceutical manufacturing. India will face growing pressure to align. Changing validated manufacturing processes is slow and costly, but tightening regulation and rising disposal costs are making the status quo harder to defend.

What chemical plants discharge is rarely what they drew in. Industrial wastewater carries heavy metals, hormone-disrupting compounds, and synthetic chemicals that conventional treatment cannot remove. India has lived with this for decades. The Ganga Action Plan has had many iterations, but has achieved little because upstream industrial discharge continues largely unabated.

Globally, PFAS, synthetic chemicals that persist indefinitely in nature, now contaminate drinking water across the United States, Europe, and Australia. In India, PFAS is being detected in waterways and farmland, but regulation remains years behind. Litigation elsewhere has already cost manufacturers tens of billions of dollars. That reckoning is coming here too.

The least visible pollution happens before manufacturing begins. Finding a better catalyst requires testing hundreds of material combinations, each trial consuming reagents, solvents, and energy. The pharmaceutical sector generates tens of thousands of tonnes of waste annually in this discovery phase alone. It receives almost no regulatory attention.

Artificial intelligence is beginning to change this. Computational models now screen vast numbers of candidate materials before any physical experiment is run, cutting laboratory trials by more than half in early applications. India has a growing computational chemistry base at institutions across Bangalore, Mumbai, and Chennai. Given its pharmaceutical scale, it stands to gain more from this shift than almost any other country.

India’s combination of pharmaceutical scale, software talent, and materials science capability makes it uniquely positioned to lead clean chemistry. Investment in bio-based feedstocks, solvent recycling, and AI-assisted discovery will cut costs and environmental damage together. These are not charitable gestures. They are the direction of the global market.

The chemistry that built the modern world was designed when clean air, water, and climate were treated as free. That assumption is gone. The question is no longer whether this era closes. It is how much damage is done before it does.

Ambika Hiranandani is a start-up founder, and Fellow of the Judge Business School. Views expressed are personal

Published – March 26, 2026 12:20 am IST