Fifteen environmental organisations have launched a procedure to stop Ineos using the ethane cracker the British chemicals giant is building in the port of Antwerp. The cracker produces one of the basics for plastic. Last summer an earlier licence was annulled because the company had failed to examine the impact of nitrogen emissions on the environment. The Flemish government issued a new licence this year. Ineos will have to show the cracker is climate neutral within ten years. Objectors don’t believe this is possible.
Greenpeace’s Joeri Thijs: “Basically nothing has changed in this project compared to the previous licence. Then too we appealed and the appeal authority ruled in our favour. Basically nothing has changed. There have been a number of small, cosmetic modifications, accounting changes, but Ineos has still not shown what impact this project will have on nature”.