
DuPont Has Spread Pollution Around the World. Now Aims to Sell Water Filters - etiam
https://theintercept.com/2018/12/11/dupont-water-filter-saudi-arabia/
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NorthOf33rd
I'm not sure for how long, but DuPont has been making water filters for some
time. Since at least 2014 [1]

Ironic? Okay, sure. A little evil? Fine. But, the headline is garbage.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20141003205844/http://www.dupont...](https://web.archive.org/web/20141003205844/http://www.dupont.com/products-
and-services/home-garden-car-care/home-improvement/products/home-water-
filters.html)

~~~
midgetjones
Wasn't there a recent story in the news where a major producer of legal
opioids, started also producing the methadone to wean addicts off them? Wish I
could find a reference

~~~
alistairSH
Yes, it was Richard Sackler, former chairman and president at Purdue Pharma
(his company still owns a major stake in the company). They produced Oxy under
his leadership, arguable contributing in a substantial way to the current
opioid crisis. Sackler recently patented a fast-acting form of buprenorphine,
a drug used to control opioid cravings.

Truly sociopathic.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/09/08/the-
man-who-made-billions-of-dollars-from-oxycontin-is-pushing-a-drug-to-wean-
addicts-off-opioids/?utm_term=.1944823cac38)

~~~
dfxm12
_Truly sociopathic._

Let me get this straight. You're positing that a single person pushed Oxy so
hard in the 70s, intentionally getting people addicted so that one day, some
40 years later, he _might_ patent one of many drugs that helps deal with
withdraw symptoms?

That is quite the long, convoluted con.

~~~
alistairSH
Purdue, under Sackler's leadership, has misrepresented the impact of opioid
use and addiction for decades.

Now, they're selling a treatment.

Did they always plan to sell the treatment? Likely not. Is it unconscionable
that after profiting off addicting millions of people to a drug, they are now
trying to get their slice of the cure? Yes, absolutely.

~~~
dfxm12
This still doesn't demonstrate sociopathic behavior.

 _Is it unconscionable that after profiting off addicting millions of people
to a drug, they are now trying to get their slice of the cure? Yes,
absolutely._

Hard disagree. That they haven't been properly punished for past crimes
doesn't make it unreasonable for them to continue doing business.

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ryanmercer
Dow Chemical, Dupont and DownDuPont have had their hands in an absurd amount
of things.

Dupont alone has made rifles, smokeless powder for ammunition and kevlar... is
this a conspiracy? No.

Is working with chemicals and materials for a couple of centuries then making
filtration products a conspiracy? No. In fact, it may actually be a
commercialization of something they developed for internal use to pollute
less.

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newswriter99
Story is written by an "environmental crime" reporter, so I'm going to assume
is slanted from the start.

Other posters have already said it: Story is DuPont's waster solutions segment
is opening a reverse osmosis water filter factory in Saudi Arabia, but it's a
conspiracy because a completely unrelated spill at a DuPont plant happened a
few years ago in New Jersey.

I cover petrochemicals daily, and I get really irate when non-industry
reporters decide to be Erin Brokovich and try to "expose the evil chemical
companies" who are allegedly bringing about the destruction of life as we know
it.

"DuPont has spread pollution around the world"

So have people in Third World countries whose growing middle class have
greatly outstripped their rudimentary waste management. Go complain about the
Asian fishers who cut lines and throw garbage in the water.

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zaroth
I’m pretty sure this is a story about a desalination plant in the desert. Made
by a company (Dow) which has been making these plants forever, which happened
to have merged with DuPont a few years ago.

I mean there’s plenty to be outraged about in the world, and DuPont certainly
is an infamous target, but this is clickbait.

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SCHiM
The good ol' brewing the poison and selling the cure. I thought racketeering
was outlawed?

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moondoggie
Creating the demand and the supply. It’s genius in a sociopathic way, but
truly amoral. Maybe they could just clean up their own messes and we wouldn’t
need the filters?

~~~
anticensor
Did you mean _immoral_?

~~~
moondoggie
They both fit, but I did mean amoral which is a bit different. Someone who is
immoral is breaking/doing something against their conscience, whereas someone
who is amoral has no conscience.

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clomond
Not trying to defend DuPont or anything. But I think the simplest explanation
here is not that there is some conspiracy or agenda like the headline implies
- but rather that DuPont has been simply developing new compounds and
materials, finding markets for them and improving use cases for them in
various industrial applications where they bring unique utility (which they
absolutely do).

In that process there has been gross negligence regarding burying, hiding or
dismissing data of these compounds' potential to impact human health and
broader environment. But this move to expand into water filters is simply them
taking their skill set as a company and using it to grow in a new and
expanding market: providing impurity free drinking water.

~~~
perfmode
> In that process there has been gross negligence regarding burying, hiding or
> dismissing data of these compounds' potential to impact human health and
> broader environment.

Why sandwich this?

