Supplier Series : BASF – The Toxic Backbone of Cummins’ Dirty Empire

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Listen up, because this is the kind of story that boils the blood and makes you want to smash something. BASF, that sprawling German chemical behemoth, isn’t just another faceless corporation churning out poisons for profit – it’s the lifeblood supplier to outfits like Cummins, the engine giant that’s been knee-deep in its own filth of scandals. And oh, how fitting it is. Cummins, as we’ve hammered home in previous TCAP exposés, has built an ecosystem rotten to the core, from emissions cheating that choked the air we breathe to dodging accountability like the cowards they are. BASF slots right in, supplying the very catalysts meant to clean up diesel exhaust, yet their own history is a cesspool of horrors that make you question if these white-collar pricks ever lose a night’s sleep. We’re talking Nazi-era complicity, endless pollution scandals, and a trail of human suffering that stretches across continents. It’s all allegedly tied together in a web of corporate greed, and while the suits sip champagne in boardrooms, the rest of us choke on their legacy. Fuck that. Let’s rip the lid off this bastard.

The BASF-Cummins Partnership: A Match Made in Emissions Hell

First things first – yes, BASF is a confirmed supplier to Cummins, and the relationship runs deep, especially in the murky world of emissions control. BASF’s Mobile Emissions Catalysts division has been hailed as Cummins’ “Supplier of the Year” back in 2021, a pat on the back for delivering the tech that’s supposed to scrub NOx and other nasties from diesel engines. Think selective catalytic reduction systems, the kind that rely on urea-based fluids to pretend like heavy-duty trucks aren’t belching poison into the atmosphere. BASF brags about it on their own channels, and Cummins has doled out awards to them, like the 2020 COVID-19 Outstanding Supplier nod for keeping the supply chain greased during the pandemic.

But this partnership isn’t some casual fling. BASF provides critical components for Cummins’ aftertreatment systems, the stuff that’s integral to meeting ever-tightening emissions regs. Without BASF’s catalysts, Cummins’ engines would be even dirtier hunks of metal. And given Cummins’ own track record? It’s poetic justice in the worst way. As TCAP has documented exhaustively, Cummins got slapped with a record-breaking $1.675 billion fine in 2023 for installing defeat devices in approximately 630,000 Ram trucks, cheating emissions tests and pumping out illegal levels of nitrogen oxides. That’s the same NOx that BASF’s products are allegedly designed to combat. How convenient that a supplier with its own history of environmental dodging ends up arm-in-arm with a company caught red-handed in one of the biggest emissions scandals since Dieselgate. These bastards enable each other, and the planet pays the price while they count their billions.

Historical Atrocities: From IG Farben to Modern-Day Denial

BASF’s roots are buried in the darkest soil imaginable. Born from the ashes of IG Farben, the Nazi chemical cartel that merged BASF with Bayer and others in 1925, this company was complicit in horrors that should make any decent human retch. IG Farben produced Zyklon B, the gas used to murder millions in Auschwitz. BASF’s executives were right there in the mix, profiting from slave labour at Monowitz, where 30,000 prisoners were worked to death building the world’s largest chemical plant. Over 25,000 allegedly perished from starvation, beatings, and worse. Post-war, IG Farben was dissolved in 1952, and BASF slithered back as an “independent” entity, but the stains don’t wash off.

Fast-forward, and BASF’s response? A measly contribution to a 1996 German industry fund that coughed up $5 billion for Holocaust survivors – peanuts compared to the scale of the genocide. Critics call it insufficient, and rightly so. These white-collar ghouls rebuild empires on bones and expect a free pass? It’s infuriating, a slap in the face to every victim. And it sets the tone for BASF’s ongoing arrogance, where accountability is just another word for “optional”.

Environmental Catastrophes: Polluting the Planet One Site at a Time

BASF’s environmental rap sheet reads like a horror novel, with Superfund sites and forever chemicals as the starring villains. Take Toms River, New Jersey – a former Ciba-Geigy plant (acquired by BASF in 2009) that’s been an EPA Superfund nightmare since 1983. Decades of dumping volatile organics into groundwater allegedly spiked childhood cancer rates in the 1990s. BASF, as the inheritor, faced lawsuits and cleanup demands, but a 2023 settlement with New Jersey DEP was slammed by locals as a joke, letting BASF redevelop without proper remediation or community say. It’s a bloody environmental tragedy, and these pricks walk away unscathed.

Then there’s Wyandotte, Michigan, where BASF’s Detroit River facility has been accused of long-term groundwater contamination, threatening drinking water and ecosystems. In 2024, state regulators ordered them to stop the pollution flow by 2025, but groups like Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision are raging about the health risks. Add Mauldin, South Carolina, with its history of violations allegedly potentially masking cancer clusters amid encroaching housing. And in France? BASF’s Saint-Aubin-lès-Elbeuf plant allegedly dumped PFAS and banned fipronil into the Seine for 25 years, leading to a 2025 blockade by 500 furious activists demanding a shutdown.

PFAS – those “forever chemicals” linked to cancer and immune fuck-ups – are BASF’s gift that keeps on giving. Lawsuits pile up: Portsmouth, Ohio, sued in 2022 over water contamination; a 2024 nationwide settlement saw BASF pony up $316.5 million for U.S. water systems; even British Columbia jumped in with a class-action. ChemSec rated them zero out of six for controversies in 2022, and while BASF vows a 2028 phase-out amid over 4,500 suits, the damage is done. Decades of pollution, and the execs? Probably toasting in Ludwigshafen. Additionally, BASF is embroiled in multidistrict litigation over PFAS in firefighting foam, facing thousands of claims from firefighters alleging cancer risks.

Pesticides, Food Scares, and Industrial Blunders

It gets worse. In 2017, BASF was tangled in Europe’s fipronil egg scandal, where millions of tainted eggs triggered recalls. Allegedly covering up sales of banned pesticides in France led to 2025 calls for action after citizen inspections. Their herbicides like glufosinate and dicamba? Accused of water pollution, health hazards, and crop carnage.

Industrial accidents? BASF’s Ludwigshafen HQ is a powder keg. A 2024 explosion injured 14 and spewed hazardous gases, forcing public warnings. ChemSec flagged the site for a decade of mishaps. Force majeure declarations in 2024 for vitamins and aromas expose operational rot. These aren’t oopsies – they’re symptoms of a company that prioritises profit over people.

Human Rights Abuses and Geopolitical Filth

BASF’s global reach means global harm. In 2025, they bailed from Xinjiang joint ventures after reports tied their partner to Uyghur forced labour, surveillance, and internment – a Handelsblatt exposé forced their hand. In Indonesia, a scrapped $2.6 billion nickel-cobalt refinery in 2024 was hailed by communities battered by pollution and rights violations.

As Europe’s top petrochemical polluter, BASF guzzles 9% of EU gas for plastics, funded by banks like BlackRock. They are part of industry efforts to oppose plastic bans, including legal challenges in Canada, and their detergent ingredients allegedly spike cancer risks for a million in the U.S. South. Shifting production to China and the U.S. amid European downsizing? Job losses and profit warnings, but the suits thrive.

Why This Matters for Cummins and the Bigger Picture

BASF’s scandals aren’t isolated – they’re tailor-made for Cummins’ tainted ecosystem. TCAP has laid bare Cummins’ emissions fraud, where they cheated the system and poisoned the air, all while suppliers like BASF provide the facade of compliance. It’s a symbiotic shitshow: BASF’s catalysts prop up Cummins’ engines, yet both dodge real accountability. White collars escape with fines that are chump change, while communities suffer cancers, poisoned water, and lost lives. It’s disgusting, enraging – these bastards build fortunes on our misery and laugh all the way to the bank. Time to hold them accountable, or watch the world burn.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Sources

(Note: All links verified as active and relevant as of December 03, 2025. Sources cover partnership, emissions scandal, historical atrocities, environmental sites, PFAS lawsuits including firefighter claims, pesticides, accidents, human rights, pollution impacts, plastic opposition, and operational shifts).

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