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Grupo Cydsa (Monterrey), one of Mexico's largest domestic chemical producers, with sales of $850 million/year, is alos emerging as one of the most aggressive in improving environmental performance. During the [...]

Chemical firms are preparing to meet the challenges of the Chemical Manufacturers Assn's product stewardship code. These challenges include determining how to handle self-evaluation forms, educating sales personnel and prioritizing resources. Dow Chemical is considered to have the chemical industry's most advanced product stewardship program, but it still expects implementation of the code to be difficult., When the Chemical Manufacturers Association sent the draft product stewardship code out to its members for comment before approval, the overwhelming response was concern over how difficult they thought it [...]

The chemical industry appears to be satisfied with the Responsible Care initiative's distribution code for chemicals. Communication between distributors and suppliers has improved. Few firms expect to have major problems in implementing the provisions of the product stewardship code. The first round of self-evaluations for chemical firms was conducted in May 1991, and the second round is scheduled for Jun 1992., By the end of this month, the second round of companies' self-evaluations is due under the Responsible Care distribution code of management practice. The code was published about a year [...]

In November 1990 Peter M. Sandman, director of the environmental communication research program at Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ), gave a now-famous speech about public skepticism of the chemical industry's [...]

Corporate environmental reports have evolved from effusive statements about environmental commitments in the late 1980s to more technical information in the late 1990s. Environmental reports enable chemical companies to inform financial institutions of their environmental investments and their environmental performance. Uniform accounting of these performances and goals would make the reports more useful and credible to observers., Since their introduction in the late 1980s, corporate environmental reports have catered to public demand by providing more technical information and fewer florid assertions about commitment to environmental protection. As [...]

The US chemical industry advocates a worldwide movement sponsoring research into the health effects of pollution, with special attention going to endocrine-disrupting effects of pesticides and industrial chemicals. Industry leaders and groups including the Chemical Manufacturers Assn, the International Council of Chemical Assns and the European Chemical Industry Council plan to fund this research with more than $20 million annually. The US Environmental Protection Agency wants to ensure impartial investigations in spite of industry contributions.

CMA board approval of responsible Care Management Systems Verification (MSV) earlier this year is a critical step for the U.S. chemical industry, which is trying to catch up with other [...]

Chemical companies' waste minimization practices and a slowdown in remediation efforts have environmental services players mired in tough times. Following 20%/year growth spurts in the 1980s, the business has matured [...]

In spite of all the economic pressures on businesses at the moment, European companies are still forging ahead with Responsible Care, says Louis Jourdan, senior director/technical affairs for the European [...]

Facing tough government regulation and intense international scrutiny, Mexico's chemical producers are attempting a radical environmental transformation. And with the industry already in an extensive restructuring because of the country's [...]

With the U.S. chemical industry still spewing about 850 million lbs/year of toxic pollutants into the air, land, and water, the effort to develop environmentally cleaner process technologies-and pay for [...]

Progress varies by company and culture How do chief executive of Western companies, from their plush offices, keep tabs on what happens at chemical plants in developing countries? Many point [...]

Outside reviews: Key to credibility Even the motto 'Don't trust us, track us' recognizes that verification of Responsible Care achievements by outside parties is the key to credibility. While Toxics [...]

The deadline for complying with the Responsible Care program of the Canadian Chemical Producers Assn (CCPA) is the end of 1992. The CCPA's evaluation of the progress made by the chemical industry reveals that the greatest problems are in the areas of community apathy, performance measurement and product stewardship. The CCPA has several options in measuring compliance, and it plans to provide assistance to firms that are unable to comply by the deadline., As the year-end deadline for compliance with the Canadian Chemical Producers Association's Responsible Care program approaches, the Ottawa-based association and its members are taking stock of the progress that has [...]

The chemical industry is making progress in community awareness and emergency response (CAER) programs for industrial accidents. Many firms, including Hoechst Celanese and Monsanto, are participating in at least one of the more than 160 community awareness panels that have been established. Chemical firms are conducting houses and plant tours and are publishing community newsletters. The success of the Responsible Care program depends on the effectiveness of CAER., Even though the third-year self-evaluations will not be available until July, David Hastings, the Chemical Manufacturers Association's associate director in charge of community awareness and emergency response (CAER), says that [...]

The chemical industry's Responsible Care program has received increased public attention, but not all of this attention has been positive. Advertisements in national magazines have increased, and employee morale and employee relations have improved as a result of the program, which encourages environmental responsibility. However, environmental groups have begun to challenge Responsible Care. One criticism of the program is that the chemical industry's lobbying practices are not compatible with the initiative., The past year has been a watershed for the Responsible Care program. On the positive side of the dividing line, it has gone public in national magazine advertisements that have [...]

For General Chemical (Parsippany, NJ), implementing Responsibe Care is largely a story of a small-to-medium-size chemical firm coordinating separate efforts in the U.S. and Canada. The same is true for [...]

QUANTUM Spurred by Responsible Care's call for continuous, long-term improvements, Quantum Chemical's USI Division (Cincinnati) has set a series of goals to cut air emissions and hazardous waste generation over [...]

ROHM AND HAAS Rohm and Haas (Philadelphia) formed its first community advisory panel five years ago, when the company grew dissatisfied with the old model of community relations - donations [...]

Key issues for companies already working to meet proposed Clean Air Act 1990 Amendment rules include controlling the act's list of 189 hazardous air pollutants and getting permits to operate [...]

'Mobay was not among the founding fathers of Responsible Care, but we signed onto the guiding principles without any questions. It was right down the track we were already on,' [...]

Responsible Care may prove to be one of the biggest and best things that ever happened to the chemical industry. It represents a total public commitment to continuous improvement of [...]

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE HAS GIVEN W.R. GRACE UNTIL THE END of the month to turn over a list of the company's potential environmental liabilities in its filings with the [...]

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT THE American Crop Protection Association (ACPA; Washington) has voted to initiate ACPA as a practitioner of Responsible Care, 13 years after ACC launched the program. [...]

ACC is developing six new statistical reporting requirements for member companies to give a broader reckoning of pollution prevention and safe operation under the Responsible Care program. Companies currently report [...]

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WILL LET STAND A JANUARY RULE THAT requires more facilities that use lead or lead compounds to report releases under EPA'S Toxics Release Inventory (TRI.) The law [...]

Cefic and the European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) have launched a voluntary initiative to notify the European Commission, European Union (EU) member governments, and the public of exports of certain [...]

SUPPLIERS OF chemicals to the auto industry will have to certify sites in the U.S. to the international environment standard ISO 14001 over the next several years. That has prompted [...]

ENVIRONMENT GROUP THE NORWEGIAN society for the conservation of nature (NNV; Oslo) is asking Bayer, Solutia, and Kanegafuchi Chemicals (Kanegafuchi, Japan) to pay for at least half of the estimated [...]

U.S TRADE REPRESENTATIVE ROBERT Zoellick says the Bush Administration will appoint a member of an environmental group to an industry panel that advises the White House on chemical trade matters. [...]

BASF'S PUSH TO foster environmentally sustainable activities is prompting a change in its research effort, says Stefan Marcinowski, BASF board member responsible for R&D. 'Underlying BASF's strategy is the premise [...]

Top Republicans and moderate Democrats in Congress joined with chemical industry leaders last week to promote a set of recommendations from the Business Roundtable (Washington) that aims to broadly reform [...]

The Chinese government says that all production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) in the country will be halted by year-end. China is the world's largest producer and consumer of CFCs. The phaseout [...]

EPA is considering releasing a draft risk reassessment of dioxin later this year, which, for the first time, concludes that dioxin is a human carcinogen. The Chlorine Chemistry Council (CCC; [...]

Kemira Chemicals says it will undertake a program to reduce emissions of chlorinated organics from its plants at Helsingborg and Kokkola, Finland that produce potassium sulfate and hydrochloric acid. The [...]

THE LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS (LCV; WASHINGTON) SAYS IT has pledged $6 million to defeat Congressional candidates that have poor overall voting records on environmental issues. LCV targeted 13 candidates [...]

It is a well-accepted chemical industry axiom that the sector maintains its 'license to operate' by improving environmental performance and being responsive to the public-the foundations of the Responsible Care [...]

The Clinton Administration has set up consultation procedures that it says will provide environmental groups with more opportunities to influence trade. U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky says she wants to [...]

EPA has issued its long-anticipated proposal to create a chemical-use inventory to help regulators evaluate risks based on industrial, commercial, and consumer uses. The proposal, which would amend biannual reporting [...]

Mexican regulators will rate companies on environmental performance to compel firms to reduce emissions, according to state environment agency Profepa (Mexico City). The agency will publish the rankings-which assign companies [...]

Global carbon dioxide emissions declined 0.5%, to 6.32 billion m.t., in 1998 despite 2.5% worldwide economic growth, according to a report by the environmental group Worldwatch Institute (Washington). The institute [...]

The Commerce Department last week proposed rules for implementing the Chemicals Weapons Convention (CWC), which will require approximately 2,000 U.S. chemical facilities to undergo inspections and submit reports on chemical [...]

Taiwanese authorities allowed Formosa Plastics Group (Taipei) to keep a 5,000-m.t. shipment of mercury-laced industrial waste in Kaohsiung Harbor last week, extending the deadline for removing the waste by two [...]

With the new appointees in the EPA, the chemical industry is again finding itself squaring off against environmentalists, who are having a say in policy at the EPA. The work of some of the environmental groups and the issues they are tackling is analyzed, along with the efforts of the chemical industries to work with and accommodate the rules being promulgated by the EPA.

Three years after the passing of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, the Environmental Protection Agency and industries are exploring compromise solutions to the cleanup of toxic waste dump sites. A combination of future joint and several liabilities and public opinion has prodded chemical industries into accelerating voluntary cleanups. These efforts are hampered by lack of criteria and guidelines for site cleanup and for the breakdown of liabilities at sites.