When BP Australia’s Mark Glazebrook visited remote areas in Central Australia in 2003, he came face to face with communities where many young people found solace in petrol sniffing and their elders despaired about what to do. Despite efforts from various parties –including BP – to curtail petrol sniffing during the midto late-1990s, Glazebrook says that reduction in sniffing was not as significant as many hoped.

Until then, one of the main strategies to curtail petrol sniffing was BP’s introduction of Comgas (Community Gas)·       which was basically aviation fuel. “BP first responded to the issue of petrol sniffing in the mid-1990s by working with the Federal Government to make aviation fuel available for use in land vehicles,” says Glazebrook, BP’s corporate citizenship adviser. “It was found that aviation fuel didn’t have the same level of vapours as regular fuel.  However, it didn’t get taken up as much as one would hope.  People were concerned with using it in vehicles and, while there was a partial take-up of Comgas, it never really made a material difference to the level of sniffing.”

Glazebrook says that by 2002, there were numerous reports from community organisations and government bodies, including coronial enquiries, on the prevalence of petrol sniffing. BP was also gathering information about the issue when they received the following email from a youth worker through their website:

“… As I write I can see a 10-year-old girl outside the window with half a coke bottle filled with unleaded petrol tied over her mouth and nose. She may well never reach her 12th birthday.”

The heartfelt plea galvanised efforts that were already in motion to find another way to combat petrol sniffing.

Innovation is only the first step

However, finding solutions to systemic problems requires more than just innovation. BP embarked on a program involving research, dialogue with experts, and an understanding of the key issues facing young people in communities in remote areas.

“A colleague and I spent a week in communities to listen and understand the nature of the problem,” says Glazebrook. “Elders were very distressed but they didn’t seem to know what else they could do. And when you spoke to young people sniffing fuels, they didn’t seem to have a lot of hope for the future. As you can imagine, we felt quite overwhelmed by the situation.”

After exploring the issue and liaising with stakeholders - including the Federal Department of Health and Ageing - Glazebrook says three themes emerged:

• DETERRENT – finding ways to deter young people from sniffing
• DIVERSION – creating activities that would engage young people
• DEVELOPMENT – developing pathways for young people to get back to school or on a career path

BP’s main input has been in “Deterrent”. It tried to find ways to literally deter young people from sniffing, first by exploring the feasibility of adding a stenching agent so that it would smell so bad people would be put off. 

“We realised that had been tried once before in other areas and that some people found ways to evaporate the stench off,” says Glazebrook. “Young people can be pretty inventive.”

BP then considered creating a fuel that had similar characteristics and performance as unleaded fuel, but without the components people wanted to sniff. A group of BP’s technicians and refinery workers trialled various blends. The resulting fuel was ultimately tested by an independent vehicle tester to evaluate it on performance, economy and pollution. “It was found to be comparable to unleaded petrol in those respects,” says Glazebrook.  “We also had it assessed by toxicologists and determined that – from a health perspective – it was less toxic over long term exposure.”

However, creating a new fuel wasn’t the only challenge.BP had to ensure that communities would embrace it.  In particular, the words used to describe it could have a significant impact on its uptake. “Before rolling it out, we had to figure out how it should be described. After much consultation, we were told by many people in communities not to use the word ‘unleaded’ because that was associated with fuel that could be sniffed.”

Taking the ‘language’ of fuel into consideration, BP conducted an internal naming competition, which resulted in 700 entries and the winning name, Opal.

Reduction in petrol sniffing

Opal was launched in February 2005 and made available in the communities which had previously been given access to Comgas. It didn’t take long to realise that the fuel had to be made available beyond the communities. “There was a lot of migration of fuel,” says Glazebrook.  “Even if communities moved to Opal, there was still potential for people to drive to outside roadhouses and bring it back, sometimes selling it for up to A$100 a litre.  In response, communities were calling for Opal to be supplied on a regional basis.”

According to the Petrol Sniffing Prevention Program, there are now 62 communities and 22 roadhouses and other participants involved.

Glazebrook says that while rigorous national data on the impact of Opal has yet to be collected, anecdotal evidence has been extremely positive. “The Aurukun community in Cape York has said that where they had up to 50 young people sniffing petrol in the past, this has been reduced to zero.

Similarly, the Papunya community, west of Alice Springs, reports similar reductions from 80 people to zero.”The Petrol Sniffing Prevention Program points out:“Reducing the availability of regular unleaded fuel has proved to be a successful strategy in combating petrol sniffing, with anecdotal reports from communities indicating that Opal fuel is already reducing the incidence of petrol sniffing in those communities.  However, it must be recognised that Opal fuel does not represent the panacea to sniffing in indigenous communities. Strategies such as community support and involvement, treatment and diversionary programs, education and policing all contribute to combating the issue of petrol sniffing.

”While BP drove the creation of Opal, it has partnered with community organisations with relevant expertise to provide programs on the “Diversion” and “Development” fronts, which include youth camps and return-to-school programs.

Opal costs more to produce but is subsidised by the Federal Government to the tune of A$0.27 per litre so that it costs the same as regular fuel. It has garnered interest from government departments of other countries, including Canada and the US, who are looking for solutions to their own “gasoline huffing” issues. 

For Glazebrook, Opal’s achievement is found in the young people it impacts. “To me, that’s the ultimate objective of this – to help save lives.”

www.bp.com.au/opal