Gulliver

Westlake Chemical is a petrochemical company that makes plastic products such as polyvinyl choride (PVC) and building materials. It was founded in 1986 by Ting Tsung Chao in 1986 in Houston, Texas. Westlake first purchased a polyethylene plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, followed by petrochemical plants in Calvert City, Kentucky, in 1990. Investigative journalists have documented many instances of releases of toxic carcinogens from all of these plants - for example Westlake emitted 48,000 times more ethylene dichloride than all other companies in Calvert City put together and over 28 times more vinyl chloride emissions than all of the others. In 2021, five workers were injured in an explosion at Westlake’s plant in Sulphur, Louisiana, and another six workers were injured in an explosion at a company plant in Westlake, Louisiana in January 2022. In June 2022, Westlake agreed to pay a $1 million civil penalty and invest $110 million in safety upgrades at the two Louisiana plants as well as the Calvert City plant. Westlake was also fined $350,000 in November 2020 for mercury pollution of the Ohio river in West Virginia.