Pollution from Ineos’s Antwerp plastic plant ‘could cause more deaths than jobs created’

Sir Jim Ratcliffe visiting Ineos’s Grangemouth complex. The firm’s planned plastics plant in Antwerp has come under fire for its projected emissions. Photograph: Russell Cheyne/Reuters

The deaths from pollution caused by Europe’s biggest plastic plant, which is being built in Antwerp, will outstrip the number of permanent jobs it will create, lawyers will argue in a court challenge issued on Thursday.

In documents submitted to the court, research suggests the air pollution from Ineos’s €4bn petrochemical plant would cause 410 deaths once operational, compared with the 300 permanent jobs the company says will be created.