The coastal city of Freeport, Texas is a dense tangle of metal pipes, tanks and towers. Located 60 miles south of Houston, it’s home to a sprawling petrochemical complex – one of the largest and most polluting in the US.
Among its facilities is a plant dedicated to the production of ammonia, a colourless compound of nitrogen and hydrogen and a key ingredient in fertilisers widely used on industrial arable farms – including on fields of barley, wheat and maize across Europe.
