Salt is all around you. Many, even most, of the products you see are produced from salt or using salt in their manufacture.
Industries use most of the salt produced in the world today. The biggest single use of salt is also one of the least known. Salt is the feedstock for the chlor-alkali chemical industry, just as oil is for the petrochemical industry. The difference: we are not running out of salt! Chlorine chemistry brings consumers clean water, soaps and detergents, many medications, PVC pipes for our homes, cell phones, cosmetics, protective suits for SCUBA divers – and astronauts, digital cameras, flat panel TVs, electron microscopes, solar panels for energy production. The list is essentially endless. Manufacturing textiles, glass, rubber, leather, even drilling oil wells, depends on salt. Salt has 14,000 known uses.