Formed in 1917 as carbon and battery company. Expanded into gases and chemicals during World War I and into uranium production and nuclear bombs in World War II.
World's largest mercury spill at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, in 1970. Some 700 people died at Hawk's Nest, West Virginia in 1930.
Chrome producer in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); after Rhodesian imports were banned by the United Nations because of racial policy, Union Carbide and Foote Mineral lobbied the U.S. for passage of the Byrd Amendment in 1972, supposedly to avoid dependence on the Soviet Union's chrome (WOTE, p. 120-121).
Between 1986 and 1992, Union Carbide shipped mercury and other toxic wastes to South Africa to be processed at the Cato Ridge smelter run by Thor Chemicals.
In the worst industrial disaster in history, a Union Carbide pesticide plant leaked forty tons of methyl isocyanate at Bhopal, India, on December 2-3, 1984, resulting in thousands of deaths and injuries. An Indian court issued an extradition order for Union Carbide chief Warren Anderson in March 1992, to stand criminal charges. (Anderson had been arrested in February 1989 when he visited Bhopal. Union Carbide had agreed to pay some $470 million to settle all claims). By then over 3,800 people had died; 200,000 suffer respiratory, vision, internal organ, and/or genetic damage.
Union Carbide has operations in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, and Union Polymers Malaysia is a subsidiary.
Union Carbide Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company. "Dow", as used throughout, often refers generically to The Dow Chemical Company and its consolidated subsidiaries.
Union Carbide Corporation
39 Old Ridgebury Rd.
Danbury CT 06817
203-794-2000
http://www.unioncarbide.com/
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