Hey there,
I’m Jake, and for the last 12 years, I’ve run a small industrial chemicals supply business—think stuff like water treatment chemicals, industrial solvents, and specialty additives for factories and manufacturing plants. Most days, I’m on the phone with plant managers, driving to deliveries, or troubleshooting a last-minute order that’s gone wrong. Lately, though, I’ve been getting a lot more questions than usual about our chemicals and what they do when they end up in rivers, lakes, and streams. People ask if I’ve thought about how all this stuff impacts aquatic life, and honestly? I’ve been digging into it more than I have since I first started in this game, because here’s the thing—this isn’t just a “problem” we can ignore. It’s something every supplier, every plant, every person who uses these chemicals needs to get real about. Industrial Chemicals
Let’s start with the basics: what even are the industrial chemicals we supply? We don’t deal with random, untested junk. Most of our stuff is stuff factories have to use—like coagulants that help clean wastewater before it’s dumped, lubricants for heavy machinery, corrosion inhibitors for pipelines, and pH adjusters for metal plating. The problem isn’t always the chemical itself, it’s how it’s used, how it’s disposed of, and how it breaks down when it gets into water. I’ll be honest, early on, I didn’t think too hard about that. I’d load up a truck, deliver it, and move on. But a few years back, a client told me their local lake had a bunch of dead fish, and they found trace amounts of a solvent we supply in the runoff. That hit me like a ton of bricks. I was just moving product, not thinking about the end destination.
So let’s break down the actual impacts, like, not the stuff you see in a textbook, but the real, messy stuff that’s happening right now to fish, bugs, plants, and the whole food chain. First up: toxic shocks. A lot of the time, factories accidentally dump too much of a chemical, or don’t treat their wastewater properly, and it hits a stream or river all at once. I remember reading a study a while back where a metal plating plant dumped excess chromium into a nearby creek—within 48 hours, every minnow, crayfish, and even the tadpoles were dead. That’s a total wipeout for that stretch of water. Even smaller amounts, over time, add up. Like, some solvents we use (wait, not the ones we make, the imported ones we supply) stick around in the water, or build up in the tissues of fish. So a small bass might have a little chemical in it, and then a heron eats that bass, and the heron has way more, and so on—up to the top of the food chain, which even ends up in the fish we eat. I never thought about that before.
Then there’s the stuff that messes up the water’s chemistry. Like, if a plant uses too much of a pH adjuster (to keep their machinery working right), that can make the water too acidic or too basic. Aquatic plants need a specific pH to grow, and if it’s off, they die. No plants mean no oxygen in the water, because plants make oxygen during the day. Dead plants = dead oxygen = dead fish. It’s a domino effect. I saw this firsthand last year—my cousin has a small cabin on a lake in upstate New York, and a nearby fertilizer plant was letting their runoff have weird pH levels. The lake’s algae blooms got so bad that the water turned green, and all the game fish in there left. They had to restock it, and it took two years for the algae to die down. That’s not just an inconvenience for cabin owners— that’s destroying a whole ecosystem, and it could’ve been prevented if the plant had monitored their runoff better.
Wait, and what about the chemicals that don’t break down easily? They call them persistent organic pollutants, or POPs for short. A lot of the specialty additives we supply (like things used in rubber or plastic manufacturing) are POPs. They don’t dissolve in water, so they sink to the bottom of lakes and rivers, and stay there for decades. I heard about a river in the Midwest that had a factory dumping a certain lubricant additive for 30 years. The sediment at the bottom still has trace amounts of it, and the catfish there have higher levels of the chemical in their tissue. Scientists say even today, you can’t eat more than one catfish a month from that river, because of it. That’s generations of fish, generations of people, impacted because one company didn’t handle their waste right.
But here’s the thing—this isn’t all doom and gloom. I’ve worked with a bunch of plants that are making changes, and so are we. A lot of people think industrial chemical suppliers just sell toxic stuff, but that’s not true. We’ve started testing every product we supply to make sure it breaks down faster if it gets into water. We also now only work with plants that have proper wastewater treatment systems, and we help them calculate exactly how much of our chemicals they need—no more over-ordering or wasting product, which means less chance of it getting dumped. Last year, we partnered with a metal plating plant that used to waste 20% of our pH adjuster, and we helped them adjust their systems so they only use what they need. That cut their waste by 80%, and they told me their local river’s water quality got better within six months. It’s a small win, but it’s a win.
I also want to talk about the invisible stuff—like how these chemicals impact the small aquatic life that most people don’t see. Stuff like zooplankton, mayfly nymphs, the tiny bugs that are the base of the food chain. If those are exposed to even low levels of a chemical, they can’t reproduce, or they die, and suddenly all the fish that eat them have nothing to eat. That’s why sometimes you’ll see a lot of adult fish in a river but no baby fish— their food source is gone. I read a report from a local environmental group last year that found streams near factories using our solvents had 60% fewer mayfly nymphs than streams that didn’t get runoff. Mayflies are super important—they’re food for everything from minnows to birds to salmon. No mayflies, no salmon. That’s a big deal for commercial fisheries, for people who like to fish, and for the whole ecosystem.
And let’s not forget about plants. Aquatic plants aren’t just pretty—they keep the water clean, provide shelter for baby fish, and absorb nutrients that would otherwise cause algae blooms. Some industrial chemicals, like certain surfactants (used in cleaning products and degreasers), can damage plant cells, so they can’t photosynthesize. I’ve seen photos from a stream in Pennsylvania where a cleaning products factory was letting small amounts of degreaser runoff, and the stream had almost no aquatic plants left. The water was murky, and the only things alive were a few hardier bugs. It looked like a totally different ecosystem than a stream just a mile away that didn’t get the runoff.
Here’s the thing I’ve realized over the last few years: everyone in this chain has a responsibility. Me, as a supplier—I can’t just sell something and walk away. I have to make sure it’s safe, that the clients I work with know how to use it right, and that they’re handling waste properly. The factories have to stop cutting corners on wastewater treatment, because it’s cheaper to dump untreated water than to treat it, but it’s costing the planet way more. And even consumers—when you buy fish, if you ask where it’s from, you’re making a choice that pushes factories to be better. I know that sounds simple, but it works.
A lot of people ask me, “Why does this matter to a chemical supplier?” Because this is my community, too. I live 20 minutes from that lake in upstate New York, I fish there with my kids every summer, and I want my kids to be able to fish there when they’re my age. I don’t want them to hear stories about how the lake used to have big bass, or how the creek used to have lots of mayflies. I want them to see it.
We’re also working on something new now—sustainable industrial chemicals. Not just chemicals that work, but chemicals that are designed to break down quickly in water, without leaving toxic residue. We’ve been testing a new coagulant with a local water treatment plant, and early results show it works just as well as the old one, but it breaks down in 30 days instead of 10 years. That’s the kind of change I want to be part of. It’s not just about making money—it’s about making sure the stuff we make doesn’t hurt the places we all rely on.
I’ll be honest, it’s not easy. I still get pushback from some clients who say “the old chemicals work fine,” or “treating wastewater is too expensive.” But when I show them those photos of dead fish, or tell them about the lake that’s been ruined for 10 years, they listen. Last month, a small textile plant called me up saying they wanted to switch to our new, more sustainable additives, because their local town was raising concerns about their runoff. That’s the kind of thing that gives me hope—plants that want to do better, not because they have to, but because they care.
At the end of the day, industrial chemicals are a big part of modern life. Every car, every phone, every food product you buy is made with some kind of industrial chemical. They don’t have to be the bad guys. But we can’t keep acting like their only impact is on the factory floor. We have to look downstream, to the rivers, lakes, and oceans that our waste flows into, and make sure we’re not breaking the ecosystems that support all life, including ours.
If you’re a plant manager, a sustainability lead, or someone who’s looking for industrial chemicals that work and are kind to the environment, let’s chat. I don’t do pushy sales calls—I sit down with you, figure out what you need, and make sure we’re not cutting corners that hurt the planet. Because at the end of the day, the best way to do business is to leave this place better than you found it.
Sweeteners References:
- US Environmental Protection Agency. (2022). Industrial Chemical Releases to Water: Impacts on Aquatic Ecosystems.
- International Union for Conservation of Nature. (2021). Persistent Organic Pollutants in Freshwater Systems: Long-Term Ecological Impacts.
- State Department of Environmental Conservation. (2023). Regional Stream Health Assessments: Chemical Runoff and Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Decline.
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