Chemicals factory shut down

Press, 7 August 1976, Page 6

Chemicals factory shut down

NZPA Bolsover The only factory in Britain making the chemical that contaminated Seveso, Italy, has been closed for safety checks at Government request, officials said yesterday.

Charles Needham, managing director of Coalite and Chemical Products, Ltd, in Bolsover in the Midlands, said the factory will be shut for several weeks. He said although the management was confident it was sate, the factory might have to close permanently.

Officials of the Government’s works safety organisation, the Health and Safety Executive, indicated that ignorance of the longterm consequences of accidental contamination could result in ending the manufacture of the weed killer trichlorophenol. The production process produces an unwanted, poisonous by-product known as T.C.D.D. After the Seveso accident, stringent safety checks were ordered by the Health and Safety Executive at the Bolsover factory. Officials of the Coalite company said the checks are to ensure that all the failsafe systems built into the production process would ensure against leakage of dangerous chemicals.