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Chemicals Coffee Time Monthly, June 2026

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Updated
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Dear Reader,

I hope this finds you able to enjoy the heat and stay cool enough to sleep overnight. It looks like the traditional saying about the British summer being “two fine days and a thunderstorm” is accurate, although in this heatwave it’s been four fine days before the rain has arrived.

Can you help?

Neil Hollis of BASF is taking part in British Coatings Federation‘s charity bike ride again this year on the 3rd July. You can find out more here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/neil-hollis_on-3rd-july-2026-im-representing-basf-and-activity-7472983714919124992-sFB4, and the donation link is here: https://www.justgiving.com/page/ridewarwickshire2026

Hearing from the HSE, DEFRA and the UK

Politics

You may have heard that there is to be a new Prime Minister in the UK, following the much-anticipated resignation of Sir Keir Starmer on Monday 22nd June.

But will the new incumbent, likely to be Andy Burnham at the time of writing, alter anything of relevance to the chemical industry? eg green taxes and their impact on fuel and energy prices (not to mention fuel duty and VAT); our relationship with the EU; specific regulations such as UK-REACH, etc. Who knows?

Preventable caustic soda incidents cause life-threatening injuries

ICYMI, there was a court case at the end of April where Industrial Chemicals Ltd was fined £3.8 million plus £125k costs over two incidents where employees sustained serious chemical burns from handling liquid caustic soda.

The first incident in 2019 caused a chap to have his leg amputated below the knee; the second incident at a different site in 2022 resulted in burns requiring a skin graft. Full details here: https://press.hse.gov.uk/2026/04/24/chemical-company-fined-3-8-million-after-investigation-into-serious-chemical-burns-suffered-by-two-employees/.

There were a series of failures leading to both incidents, including no risk assessment of the activities and poor PPE selection. It seems that both the affected men did not seem to be aware of the risks of handling caustic soda, and what to do if they were in contact with it, which, to me, is also a failure to communicate the risks effectively.

It is really easy to become comfortable handling hazardous chemicals, and to downplay the risks from that (which is why lab staff are often worst at health and safety, because we are exposed to small quantities daily), but these incidents show that you can never become complacent over COSHH and routine chemical exposure, in the same way that you should maintain a state of “chronic unease” over process safety risks.

There are a number of guidance documents on COSHH available on the HSE website:

Note that the old COSHH essentials e-tool (which started in 2016) has been withdrawn.

P.S. remember that lead and its compounds, asbestos and radioactive substances are outside COSHH as they have their own specific regulations.

HSE MC List layout changes

Kathryn Tearle of British Coatings Federation writes: Following the publication of The Chemicals (Health and Safety) (Amendment, Consequential and Transitional Provision) Regulations 2026, which came into force on the 21st May, the Mandatory Classification List has been updated with a new sheet, ‘sheet 1’ which contains the full text of the notes from the MCL list. The page where you download the spreadsheet notes the sheet was last updated in September 2025, so don’t be fooled. The notes have been added.

I asked the HSE helpdesk about the notes and suggested renaming the Tab from “Sheet 1” to describe the contents of the sheet. I had a reply from the Helpdesk earlier this week:

The new sheet on the GB MCL list spreadsheet currently titled ‘sheet 1’ is due to be updated over the next couple of weeks and be renamed ‘GB MCL List Technical Notes’.

In regards to notes 11 and 12, it is intended that these will be put forward for a Ministerial decision in the next GB MCL Recommendation (due in September) to give it legal effect in Great Britain. Once we have the Ministerial decision, the GB MCL List will be updated, hopefully by December 2026 (resources permitting). This update will include adding notes 11 and 12 and the note for entry 607-230-00-6 (which is note 12) will, as you suggest, be moved into the list of notes.

Many thanks to Kathryn for spotting this anomaly and letting us know that we need to look in the page marked “sheet 1” as well as the substance specific information on the workbook marked “GB MCL List”. It’s good that the HSE are moving quickly to update the MC List and make it clearer for industry (in stark contrast to ECHA’s inflexibility, see the item on SME status changes below). You can download the updated MCL from this webpage: https://www.hse.gov.uk/chemical-classification/classification/mcl-list.htm.

New UK-SVHCs

You may remember that earlier in the year, it was announced that the UK SVHC list would be updated in tranches to align more closely with the EU?

Well, the first tranche was published on the 15th June, and the updated SVHC list can be downloaded in excel format from this webpage: https://www.hse.gov.uk/reach/candidate-list.htm . Many thanks to the Health and Safety Executive CRD stakeholder team, and to Phil Rowley Phil Rowley, for letting us know about this important change.

The chemicals which have been added to the list are:

  • 2,2′,6,6′-tetrabromo-4,4′-isopropylidenediphenol; 79-94-7
  • 2,2-bis(bromomethyl)propane-1,3-diol (BMP); 2,2-dimethylpropan-1-ol, tribromo derivative/3-bromo-2,2-bis(bromomethyl)-1-propanol (TBNPA); 2,3-dibromo-1-propanol (2,3-DBPA); (
  • 3-bromo-2,2-bis(bromomethyl)-1-propanol (TBNPA);1522-92-5
  • 2,2-dimethylpropan-1-ol, tribromo derivative (TBNPA);36483-57-5
  • 2,3-dibromo-1-propanol (2,3-DBPA);96-13-9
  • 2,2-bis(bromomethyl)propane-1,3-diol (BMP);3296-90-0
  • 2-(4-tert-butylbenzyl)propionaldehyde and its individual stereoisomers;-
  • (2R)-3-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-2-methylpropanal;75166-31-3
  • 2-(4-tert-butylbenzyl)propionaldehyde;80-54-6
  • (2S)-3-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-2-methylpropanal;75166-30-2
  • 2-(dimethylamino)-2-[(4-methylphenyl)methyl]-1-[4-(morpholin-4-yl)phenyl]butan-1-one;119344-86-4
  • 6,6′-di-tert-butyl-2,2′-methylenedi-p-cresol;119-47-1
  • 6-[(C10-C13)-alkyl-(branched, unsaturated)-2,5-dioxopyrrolidin-1-yl]hexanoic acid;2156592-54-8
  • Barium diboron tetraoxide;13701-59-2
  • Bis(2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl)ether;143-24-8
  • Bis(α,α-dimethylbenzyl) peroxide;80-43-3
  • Dioctyltin dilaurate, stannane, dioctyl-, bis(coco acyloxy) derivs., and any other stannane, dioctyl-, bis(fatty acyloxy) derivs. wherein C12 is the predominant carbon number of the fatty acyloxy moiety;-
  • dioctyltin dilaurate; stannane, dioctyl-, bis(coco acyloxy) derivs.;-
  • Dioctyltin dilaurate;3648-18-8
  • Stannane, dioctyl-, bis(coco acyloxy) derivs.;91648-39-4
  • diphenyl(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphine oxide;75980-60-8
  • N-(hydroxymethyl)acrylamide;924-42-5
  • orthoboric acid, sodium salt;
  • boric acid (H3BO3), sodium salt, hydrate;25747-83-5
  • Trisodium orthoborate;14312-40-4
  • Boric acid, sodium salt;1333-73-9
  • Boric acid (H3BO3), disodium salt;22454-04-2
  • Orthoboric acid, sodium salt;13840-56-7
  • boric acid (H3BO3), sodium salt (1:1);14890-53-0
  • tris(2-methoxyethoxy)vinylsilane;1067-53-4
  • Reactive Brown 51 (tetra(sodium/potassium) 7-[(E)-{2-acetamido-4-[(E)-(4-{[4-chloro-6-({2-[(4-fluoro-6-{[4-(vinylsulfonyl)phenyl]amino}-1,3,5-triazine-2-yl)amino]propyl}amino)-1,3,5-triazine-2-yl]amino}-5-sulfonato-1-naphthyl)diazenyl]-5-methoxyphenyl}diazenyl]-1,3,6-naphthalenetrisulfonate) (substance having a complex composition with <80% of the named constituents and other reaction side products); EC no 466-490-7

As you are probably aware, SVHC status for a substance brings a number of duties with it, including the requirement to identify it in a mixture SDS at or above 0.1% w/w; to provide an SDS for any non-classified product containing an SVHC at or above 0.1% w/w; and duties on article notification as well.

If you make consumer products, you may find that a lot of retailers will not accept them with SVHCs at notifiable level.

We are expecting the next tranche of SVHCs to be published in the autumn, and you can see the UK’s registry of SVHC intentions here: https://www.hse.gov.uk/reach/svhc-intentions-until-outcome.htm .

UK deforestation regulations

Do you remember a proposed version of EUDR, called the UK Forest Risk Commodity Regulation (UKFRC)?

News that this idea may be finally coming to fruition https://www.linkedin.com/posts/barnabypatchett_coming-spring-2024-thats-what-someone-share-7475102034048983040-1szh/

If you have had difficulties dealing with the complexity of the EU deforestation regulations, you will be relieved to hear that the current proposals are “less stringent and easier to comply with”.

However, it crosses my mind that even if the current plans are to have a simpler set of regulations than in the EU, if we continue the push for parity with EU regulations which Starmer has started, might these be extended to mirror the EU regulations exactly? And the author of the post seems to agree, as he notes an intention to “eventually transition to a blanket “deforestation-free” standard“, which he interprets as adopting EUDR.

Keeping an Eye on ECHA and the EU

RAC meeting updates – TFA and Resorcinol

Following significant NGO pressure, Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) has been classified by the Risk Assessment Committee at ECHA as Repr 1B DF, and also PMT and vPvM. This was announced in their weekly newsletter on Wednesday, and the details can be downloaded here: https://echa.europa.eu/registry-of-clh-intentions-until-outcome/-/dislist/details/0b0236e188e6e587

Despite quite a lot of publicity from the NGOs, mainly focussing on the reprotox classification, this is not a “done deal” yet, see https://www.linkedin.com/posts/niklas-pieper-legal_pfas-tfa-echa-ugcPost-7470494274623684609-ZdJn/ .

And it’s not just TFA which has a proposed classification from this RAC meeting, as resorcinol is being recommended for an Endocrine Disruptor for Human Health, Category 1 (ED HH 1, EUH380). More details here: https://echa.europa.eu/registry-of-clh-intentions-until-outcome/-/dislist/details/0b0236e18958480e . (Note that there are no changes to the rest of the existing Harmonised Classification).

There was also an announcement that glyphosate will be reviewed by a future RAC meeting, following the recent, somewhat controversial, study by the Rammazini Institute.

A note on changing SME status at ECHA

Steven Brennan of Foresight has spotted a worrying adjudication where someone trying to update their SME status didn’t follow the exact procedure, and were fined (or “subject to an administrative charge”) by ECHA see https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dr-steven-brennan_decision-on-how-the-european-chemicals-agency-activity-7468296113234653185-5Naj.

If you do have to make this type of change at ECHA, it’s clear that you need to follow the rules exactly, there is no “wiggle room” in ECHA’s set up to account for honest mistakes.

EU-CLP label news

Many thanks again to Kathryn Tearle of BCF, who reported on Wednesday that “a political agreement has now been reached on Omnibus VI on Chemicals.” (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/kathryn-tearle-562b1516_clp-tradeassociations-share-7472909179473715200-_-Zo/)

There are actually two press releases on this issue, a glossy one here: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2026/06/17/council-and-parliament-strike-deal-to-simplify-requirements-for-chemical-products/; and a much more useful one from the “press room”, here: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20260616IPR45506/chemicals-deal-on-simplification-of-cosmetics-fertiliser-and-labelling-rules .

The official press room summary is:

  • Cosmetics containing carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic substances must be taken off the market faster than the Commission is proposing
  • Labels must remain legible for consumers
  • Simplification of fertiliser rules to benefit EU producers and farmers

And the details they have published on chemical labels are:

It was agreed that the label elements shall be legible for consumers. Where the substance is placed on the market for the public, the text of the label shall use a font size where the x-height is equal to or greater than 1.2 mm. When the contents of the package of the substance do not exceed 125 ml, the x-height must be equal to or greater than 0.9 mm.

To address practical labelling challenges while ensuring that full hazard information remains available on the outer packaging, co-legislators agreed that, for chemical products in containers of 10 ml or less, some label elements — though not the hazard pictograms — may be provided on a digital label.

To bring regulatory clarity and address possible public health concerns, co-legislators introduced a specific 15-month deadline for suppliers to update labels when a new evaluation leads to a more severe classification, instead of “without undue delay” as proposed by the Commission.

There’s nothing in either press release about other label issues like the distance between lines of text, for example, or for whether the CLP label background has to be white with black text. So we’ll have to wait until this political decision goes through the approval process and the final regulation is published until we have full confirmation of all the changes. Watch this space!

EU-PIC being updated

The EU is adding 34 chemicals to it’s Prior Informed Consent list, see https://www.linkedin.com/posts/euabrpic-chemicalsafetyeu-share-7475899383713243139-VQly/.

This will come into effect in the autumn, and the current list is;

  • 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2- yl)-4-(tert-butyl)-6-(sec-butyl)phenol (UV-350) (+), 36437-37-3
  • 2-(2H-benzotriazol-2- yl)-4,6-di-tert- pentylphenol (UV-328) (+), 25973-55-1
  • 2-benzotriazol-2-yl-4,6- di-tert-butylphenol (UV-320) (+), 3846-71-7
  • 2,2′-dichloro-4,4′- methylene-dianiline;4,4′-methylenebis[2- chloroaniline] (MOCA), 101-14-4
  • 2,4-di-tert-butyl-6-(5- chlorobenzotriazol-2- yl)phenol (UV-327) (+), 3864-99-1
  • 4,4′- bis(dimethylamino)-4”- (methylamino)trityl alcohol (+), (with ≥ 0,1 % of Michler’s ketone (EC No 202-027-5) or Michler’s base (EC No 202-959-2)), 561-41-1
  • 5-sec-butyl-2-(2,4- dimethylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl)-5-methyl-1,3- dioxane [1], 5-sec- butyl-2-(4,6-dimethylcyclohex-3-en-1-yl)-5-methyl-1,3- dioxane [2] (+), covering any of the individual stereoisomers of [1] and [2] or any combination thereof, 117933-89-8, 676367-06-9, 676367-05-8, 343934-04-3, 676367-09-2, 343934-05-4, 676367-04-7, 676367-08-1, 676367-03-6, 676367-07-0, 676367-02-5, 1781250-06-3 and others
  • Acids generated from chromium trioxide and their oligomers: Chromic acid; Dichromic acid; Oligomers of chromic acid and dichromic acid, 7738-94-5, 13530-68-2 and others
  • Ammonium dichromate, 7789-09-5
  • Arsenic acid, 7778-39-4
  • Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate (DEHP), 117-81-7
  • Bis(2-methoxyethyl)ether, 111-96-6
  • Chromium trioxide, 1333-82-0
  • Dechlorane Plus (+) ’Dechlorane Plus’ includes its syn-isomer and anti-isomer, 13560-89-9, 135821-03-3, 135821-74-8
  • Diarsenic trioxide, 1327-53-3
  • Dibutyl phthalate (DBP), 84-74-2
  • Dichromium tris(chromate), 24613-89-6
  • Dodemorph, including dodemorph acetate (+), 1593-77-7, 31717-87-0
  • Fenpyrazamine (+), 473798-59-3
  • Flumetralin (+), 62924-70-3
  • Metaflumizone (+), 139968-49-3
  • Metribuzin (+), 21087-64-9
  • Pentazinc chromate octahydroxide, 49663-84-5
  • Pitch, coal tar, high- temp, 65996-93-2
  • Polyhexamethylene biguanide hydrochloride PHMB (1600; 1.8) (+), 27083-27-8, 32289-58-0
  • Potassium dichromate, 7778-50-9
  • Potassium chromate, 7789-00-6
  • Potassium hydroxyoctaoxodizincatedichromate, 11103-86-9
  • Pyridalyl (+), 179101-81-6
  • Reaction products of 1,3,4-thiadiazolidine-2,5-dithione, formaldehyde and 4- heptylphenol, branched and linear (RP-HP) (+) (with ≥0.1% w/w 4- heptylphenol, branched and linear (4-HPbl)), 93925-00-9, 1471311-26-8 and others
  • Reaction mass of 2- ethylhexyl 10-ethyl-4,4- dioctyl-7-oxo-8-oxa-
  • 3,5-dithia-4- stannatetradecanoate and 2-ethylhexyl 10- ethyl-4-[[2-[(2- ethylhexyl)oxy]-2- oxoethyl]thio]-4-octyl-7-oxo-8-oxa-3,5-dithia-4-stannatetradecanoate (reaction mass of DOTE and MOTE) (+), 64685-81-0
  • Sodium chromate, 7775-11-3
  • Sodium dichromate, 10588-01-9
  • Strontium chromate, 7789-06-2
  • Tritosulfuron (+), 142469-14-5
  • Trichloroethylene, 79-01-6

There are other changes to the EU-PIC list, not just new additions, so you need to read the small print carefully. Chemicals on the UK-PIC may be updated at some point as well, but I can’t find anything about that at the moment – please let me know if you have information on this.

Process Safety Corner

Recent Incidents

Insights

Infographic of the Month

This month, it’s not a single infographic, it’s a whole bunch of them, covering the groups in the Periodic Table. These are from the RSC, and can be found here: https://edu.rsc.org/resources/elements-infographics/1679.article

The Weekend Watch/ Read

If you think that we should always wear gloves in the lab and when taking field samples, and that they are unlikely to affect tests we carry out, you may be surprised to learn that they can give “false positives”.

In particular, gloves were found to give false microplastic results in atmospheric pollution samples, see https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lab-glove-deposits-drive-false-microplastic-signatures-in-atmospheric-pollution-samples/4023485.article

The Weekend Recipe

Time for another recipe to test out lactose-free cream, and it’s a recipe for a pasta sauce which I’ve been meaning to try for ages. It’s called pasta alfredo, and it’s a really simple recipe, although very calorific. Apparently it was invented in Rome, but it’s mainly an American dish these days.

Alfredo sauce ingredients (serves 4)

  • 30g/1oz salted butter
  • 2 large garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
  • optional – ½ tbsp dried Italian or mixed herbs
  • 300ml/½ pint double cream or lactose free whipping cream (Americans tend to call whipping cream “heavy cream”)
  • 75g/2¾oz Parmesan, freshly grated
  • salt and pepper to taste

Method:

First grate your Parmesan cheese, weigh the butter, and have enough cream handy. Melt the butter in a pan over a gentle heat, then very gently soften the garlic (you could take the garlic out at this stage for a less garlicky flavour). Do not allow the garlic to turn brown as it will get bitter. Then stir in the heavy / double/ whipping cream, and bring it to a gently simmer, and keep stirring so it doesn’t stick to the base of the pan. Then add the grated parmesan and stir until the cheese has melted and the sauce is thickened. Season to taste – you may not need salt. Either leave in a warm place until you need it, or cool down and store in the fridge for a day or two before reheating to use.

Serve warm poured over freshly cooked pasta, usually fettucini, but you can use any pasta suitable for a creamy sauce (usually flatter pastas).

Findings: This is basically just a posh garlicky version of macaroni cheese! but with cream and parmesan instead of a cheesy white sauce. I was a bit worried about the lactose free cream, which is definitely a bit sweeter than normal cream (I think because the galactose and glucose molecules created when lactase enzyme breaks down lactose increases the overall sweetness naturally), but the parmesan’s savouriness hid that. We had this with spaghetti, as there was no fettucini in the house, and I didn’t fancy making any from scratch (although it’s relatively straightforward), and it was very tasty.

Free from notes: if you are more lactose intolerant than I am, skip the butter and just poach the garlic gently in the lactose-free cream. Parmesan is such a hard cheese that it has virtually no lactose. This is an intrinsically gluten-free sauce, and you can serve it with gluten free pasta if you are gluten-intolerant.

Reasons to be Cheerful

This month, our Reasons to be Cheerful are from Only Fools and Horses:

Many thanks for reading this LinkedIn newsletter, and many thanks to everyone who has contributed, through sending in links, queries, comments etc. If you have anything you’d like to share, please email me or send a DM, and I’ll do my best to include it in the next Chemicals Coffee Time Monthly.

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Look forward to chatting to you in late February or early March.

Kind regards,

Janet

Janet Greenwood, TT Environmental Ltd

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