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Packaging Shows Stronger Foundation THE U.S. ECONOMIC SLOWDOWN will hit the construction adhesives industry hard as house building declines, but packaging adhesives producers should not be so badly affected, adhesive [...]

EUROPEAN UNION (EU) regulations that will require the phase-out of mercury-cell chlorine manufacture give producers until 2007 to decide whether to idle their units or invest an estimated $80 million/plant [...]

U.K. chemical companies have committed to improving energy efficiency under an agreement with the government designed to reduce the cost to industry of the planned U.K. energy tax, the Climate [...]

DEGUSSA HAS BOUGHT CHIROTEGH, Aventis's chiral chemistry research activities, for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will be effective on June 1. The acquired operation, including 25 staff, will be relocated [...]

AKZO NOBEL IS UNDER INVESTIGATION BY antitrust authorities in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union. The investigations involve 'a small number' of unspecified chemical products, says Akzo CEO Cees [...]

Bayer plans to develop genetically modified (GM) plants that can be used to produce food additives and pharmaceutical active ingredients, says research director Pol Bamelis. 'We think there is great [...]

The European Commission says it may take legal action against 11 European Union (EU) member governments in the European Court of Justice, if the governments fail to transpose the commission's [...]

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LAST WEEK voted by a big majority in favor of the European Commission's directive on generically modified organisms (GMO). The directive proposes tough legislation, including rigorous safety [...]

THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY HAS REACTED STRONGLY AGAINST the European Commission's white paper on chemicals, which was released last week (CW, Feb. 14, p. 18). The paper calls for a major [...]

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION LAST WEEK issued a draft version of its long-awaited White Paper on chemicals (CW Nov. 15, 2000, p. 23). The draft, meant for internal circulation only, includes [...]

THE ORGANIZATION FOR ECONOMIC Cooperation and Development (OECD; Paris) has approved chemical industry-generated risk assessments of 11 products for inclusion in OECD's high-production volume (HPV) chemicals review. The 11 assessments [...]

MORE THAN 40,000 NORWEGIANS MAY BE at risk for health problems caused by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and dioxins found in fish and shellfish, says the Norwegian Society for Conservation of [...]

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION LAST WEEK PROPOSED A PRIORITY LIST of 32 substances that it wants phased out or more strictly controlled to meet with new water quality standards that were [...]

The French Government last week issued a decree that will require local officials to enforce limits on surface water nitrate pollution, including mandates restricting the use of nitrogen fertilizers. The [...]

Polymers producer Victrex (Cleveleys, U.K.) and Ballard Power Systems (Burnaby, BC) have announced an exclusive agreement to develop and manufacture two ionomers for use in fuel cell membranes produced by [...]

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION IS UNLIKELY pass further legislation to control the use of diisononyl phthalate (DINP) and diisodecyl phthalate (DIDP) plasticizers, sources say. The commission recently completed risk assessments of [...]

The European Environmental Bureau (EEB; Brussels), a nongovernmental organization, is calling on the European Commission to impose stricter pollution controls on industrial energy recovery plants in the European Union (EU). [...]

OPPOSITION TO GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) FOODS still casts a shadow over the ag biotech industry, but pesticide makers are not complaining. The pesticides market will grow worldwide 0.5%-1%/year through 2004, [...]

The European Commission is planning to introduce a law that will cut the solvent content of household paints and varnishes, for professional and private use, by up to 70%. No [...]

DELEGATES FROM 120 COUNTRIES AGREED at a United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) conference in Johannesburg, last week on an international treaty to ban or restrict the use of 12 persistent [...]

The European Commission has extended until March 5, 2001 its emergency ban on the use of six phthalate plasticizers in soft polyvinyl chloride (PVC) toys designed to be placed in [...]

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT HAS VOTED to broaden the scope of three draft maritime safety directives proposed by the European Commission, in the wake of recent accidents, including the chemical carrier [...]

EUROPEAN GOVERNMENTS HAVE BACKED proposals to introduce Europe-wide regulations to determine civil liability for big industrial accidents. The vote took place last week at the first meeting of the 1992 [...]

THE PERSONAL CARE market is growing at only 1%--2%/year, and formulators are willing to give themselves a makeover to help boost sagging earnings. Personal care companies are increasingly outsourcing their [...]

SYNGENTA HAS AGREED TO SELL TWO pesticide lines to Makhteshim-Agan Industries (MAI; Beer Sheva, Israel). Syngenta was created last month by merging the crop protection businesses of AstraZeneca and Novartis; [...]

Former polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) plant managers at the Brindisi, Italy petrochemical complex have been accused of mass manslaughter and involuntary environmental disaster for allegedly failing [...]

DELEGATES AT THE BRITISH CROP Protection Council conference held recently in Brighton, U.K were cheered by the latest market forecasts, which are more optimistic than previous predictions. The worldwide pesticide [...]

TWO KINDS OF GENETICALLY MODIFIED (GM) CORN PRODUCED BY Monsanto, neither approved for sale in Europe, have been detected in three brands of tortilla chips sold in the U.K., says [...]

Ethylene oxide (EO) and ethylene dichloride (EDC), destined for use in insecticides rather than as intermediates, will be added to the list of substances covered by the 1998 Rotterdam Convention, [...]

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION LAST WEEK unveiled plans to strengthen food safety laws in the European Union (EU) and create a food safety agency, the European Food Authority (EFA). EFA, scheduled [...]

SOVEREIGN SPECIALTY CHEMICALS HAS acquired the adhesives business of Croda International (Goole, U.K.) for up to [pound]44.5 million ($64 million). Sovereign has made an initial payment of [pound]41.4 million and [...]

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT HAS PASSED A RESOLUTION CALLING for the European Commission to regulate suspected endocrine-disrupting chemicals by mid-2001, rather than waiting until 2005 when key scientific tests are slated [...]

A CHEMICAL TANKER CARRYING 4,000 M.T. of styrene, 1,000 m.t. of isopropyl alcohol (IPA), and 1,000 m.t. of methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) sank off the U.K. Channel Islands on October [...]

Chemnet.com, a specialty chemical Internet portal for spot purchases and futures contracts, has launched in Europe. The site, which plans to start procurement transactions in December, serves the paints, adhesives [...]

The European Commission has approved the immediate implementation of import restrictions on 13 hazardous chemicals. The 13 chemicals are covered by rules under the United Nations Rotterdam Convention. Sixteen other [...]

SIBERIAN-URALS PETROCHEMICAL AND Gas Co. (Sibur; Moscow), a subsidiary of Gazprom (Moscow), has signed an agreement giving it the option to acquire up to 24.7% of BorsodChem (Kazincbarcika, Hungary) from [...]

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producers told the European Commission last week that they would improve the industry's environmental performance voluntarily and do not need to be regulated. The comments were made [...]

VESTOLIT (MARL, GERMANY) HAS BROKEN off talks to acquire EVC International (Brussels), Europe's largest polyvinyl chloride (PVC) producer (CW, Aug. 2, p. 6). The companies refused to disclose the reason [...]

AT LEAST 20,000 MORE OF THE 100,000 CHEMICALS INTRODUCED TO THE European Union (EU) before 1981 should be classified as hazardous, says the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA; Copenhagen). The [...]

A proposed industrial energy tax in France could spell financial trouble for the the country's chemical sector, even with planned discounts for companies that volunteer to reduce emissions, says the [...]

OCTYL METHOXYCINNAMATE (OMC), USED as a UVB filter in 90% of sun lotions, may harm human skin cells, say researchers at the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority (NRPA; Osteras). BASF's new [...]

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION HAS ISSUED A PROPOSAL THAT WOULD add to member states' water quality plans a group of priority pollutants targeted for phase out within 20 years. The priority [...]

AVENTIS HAS BEEN CRITICIZED FOR NOT cooperating in a series of public hearings to determine if its genetically modified (GM) corn, Chardon LL, should be placed on the U.K. National [...]

European Union (EU) member states should not be allowed to use existing safety data when approving new 'generic' pesticides, says Phillipe Leger, advocate general at the European Court of Justice [...]

CEFIC HAS JOINED BRUSSELS-BASED business federations Unice, Eurocommerce, and Eurochambres, as well as the European Shippers Council (Brussels), to appeal for urgent action by the European Commission to improve the [...]

NOVARTIS AND ASTRAZENECA PLAN A $1-billion buyback program to support the share price of Syngenta, the company that will be created by merging their respective agchem businesses and spinning off [...]

The Drinking Water Inspectorate (DWI; London), a government body linked to the Department for the Environment, Transport, and the Regions, says it will ban the use of lead stabilizers in [...]

The Italian government has opposed European Commission proposals to change the reference year for hydrofluorocarbon (HCFC) import and production quota calculations. The proposal, supported by all other EU member states, [...]

The European Commission has ordered the governments of Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Portugal to stand trial in the European Court of Justice (Strasbourg, France) for failure to implement [...]

THE CHEMICALS DIVISION OF THE UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT Program (UNEP Chemicals; Geneva) will this month begin a $5-million assessment of potential environmental and health risks of persistent toxic substances polybrominated [...]