The 'Get Compliant' section of the NCEC website now has a new page to add to the family.

The NCEC March 2010 Newsletter is now available online. Topics include legislation, new Hazchem Posters, chemical safety training, a look behind the scenes, and more

The 2010 Hazmat Event promised to be bigger and better than ever before and thanks to ongoing support from both the Emergency Services and a large variety of other Hazmat Professionals, this promise was not broken.

As an extension to ChemeDox®, NCEC’s comprehensive chemical safety documentation management system, we have now added a new SDS Location module. This module is designed to save you time and money on audits, process reviews and daily tasks, and will help you comply with legislation associated wit the provision of chemical safety information to employees and subcontractors. It allows you to assign your SDSs to particular locations, then view and search your documents by, for example, site, store, production line, lab etc. The module is tailored to your business so you can search your documents in a way that is relevant to you, whilst maintaining your audit trail by location.

Not only have NCEC just launched the new Chemdata customer portal, but Chemdata has never been better value! The latest version of Chemdata has an extra 1,000 substances and 4,000 extra synonyms and Trade names. This brings the grand total of substances to 36,000 with over 116,000 synonyms and Trade names. The Customer Portal allows our customers to download the latest versions of Chemdata and Pocket Chemdata, as well as get to know more about the Chemdata team here at NCEC. We would like to thank our customers for the overwhelming positive feedback, it makes all the hard work worth while.

Marine incidents involving chemical substances are more complex to deal with than oil spills (for which several simulation tools already exist). Dealing with one single substance dispersed at sea can be difficult enough, but when two or more are present these may interact in a wholly different way, forming complex chemical compounds. In addition, the variables required to assess the exact conditions of each incident are many, including tidal currents, weather patterns and proximity to population centres.

NCEC's first newsletter of 2010 (covering legislation changes, Hazmat 2010 and much more) is now available online

Updates have been made to Annex II of REACH to further compliment the UN Globally Harmonised System (GHS) regarding classification, labelling and packaging (implemented via CLP in the EU). As well as new deadlines, the surrounding commercial implications of REACH registration numbers and the inclusion of surface chemistry has also been discussed.

All too commonly, NCEC are coming across businesses that have missing or out of date COSHH assessments.

Note: These Amendment Regulations apply to England only. It is understood that amendments to the relevant legislation in Scotland and Wales will come into force in November and December respectively. The amendments in Scotland and Wales will be differently titled but will have the same effect.

Need training for the event of a chemical incident? NCEC have just released a new date for Hazmat 1st Response Training - 02/03/2010.

Earlier in the year, chemicals including acids, solvents and pharmaceuticals were dumped in several locations across England. Three men have been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation by the Environment Agency and Police.

The U.S Chemical Safety Board (CSB), an independent federal agency, have launched an investigation into the enormous explosion on October 23 2009 at Caribbean Petroleum Refining in Puerto Rico.

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new and improved web site. As well as giving the site a design make-over, we hope the new site enables you to find information quicker and easier than ever. We see our web site as an ongoing project to deliver you useful information as well as resources and tools to help you with chemical health and safety. NCEC aim to make continuous improvements to the site but are keen to hear your comments.

NCEC advised Dorset Fire and Rescue when they attended a chemical incident at a Bournemouth gym.