A BuzzFeed News investigation found low-paid American workers producing tear gas in potentially dangerous conditions. It's then shipped to Hong Kong, where it's used against pro-democracy protesters…

Employees described aging equipment that caught fire and injuries and severe irritation caused by working long hours with chemicals. After one of its buildings burned down, the company declined to rebuild the facility, instead shifting more of the production into shipping containers. The company has been fined multiple times for safety violations by the Department of Labor… Yet while its American workers are paid very little to work in potentially dangerous conditions, its shipments continue — largely to foreign governments who reap the benefits of its products, employees said…

One of the owners of Nonlethal Technologies answered questions briefly outside the factory before asking BuzzFeed News to leave the premises, and did not respond to more in-depth emailed questions.

Shifts at Nonlethal Technologies begin at 6:30 a.m. and stretch until 5 p.m. The starting pay is $9.50 an hour, barely up from $8 an hour when the factory opened nearly 20 years ago, said workers…

Most of the time staff are required to wear a protective suit, gloves, and a full-face gas mask… Even with the protective gear, flakes of the chemicals get everywhere…

Nonlethal Technologies’ sales materials say that its testing procedures ensure “the highest reliability and performance of our end products and strict conformity to our printed specifications.” But employees said the testing involved little more than using a stopwatch to check how long it took for a product to ignite or emit smoke in one of the storage containers…

The processes that workers described raised the concern of safety experts. “That doesn’t sound like a very safe process to me,” said Kenneth Brown, a consultant on chemical safety standards, told BuzzFeed News…

 “There were really no safety practices when I was there,” said Dawson, who spent 15 years working at the factory…

There aren’t many restrictions on US companies selling tear gas overseas, beyond applying for an export license from the Department of Commerce… Federal regulations also outline that the government generally grants these licenses unless there’s evidence that a country may have violated international human rights standards…

… in August, US legislators, including McGovern, wrote to the secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, calling for a ban on exports of tear gas from the US to Hong Kong…