DuPont to Divest Chemical Units; EPA Expands Safer Chemical Ingredients List

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DuPontDuPont plans to divest a big portion of its traditional chemical business, including its Teflon fluoroproducts brand and its titanium dioxide pigment unit, Chemical & Engineering News reports.

The company is considering a sale or a spin-off for the business, C&EN says, adding that DuPont will keep engineering polymers and electronic chemicals plus well-known brands Kevlar, Corian and Tyvek.

The trade publication reports DuPont CEO Ellen J. Kullman told stock analysts this week that the company will focus on agricultural chemicals, seeds, nutrition, biobased chemicals and advanced materials.

In other chemical news, the EPA has added more than 130 chemicals to its Safer Chemical Ingredients List including 119 chemicals that use fragrance for commercial and consumer cleaning products.

The Safer Chemical Ingredients List, which now contains 602 chemicals, serves as a resource for manufacturers interested in making safer products.

It’s also used by health and environmental advocates seeking to encourage the use of safer chemicals and consumers seeking information on the ingredients in safer chemical products.

The list also serves as a guide for Design for the Environment (DfE) labeled products, which must meet the EPA’s standards for protecting human health and the environment.

More than 2,500 products are certified under the DfE Standard for Safer Products including all-purpose cleaners, laundry and dishwasher detergents, window cleaners, car and boat care, and many other products. Using DfE-certified products significantly reduces exposures to chemicals.

The Safer Chemical Ingredients list was created in September 2012 and the EPA continues to update the list with additional fragrances and chemicals.

Earlier this week, the EPA reduced a regulatory burden for industrial facilities using solvent wipes in a move the agency says will save industry between $21.7 million and $27.8 million per year.

The final rule modifies the hazardous waste management regulations under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) to conditionally exclude solvent-contaminated wipes from hazardous waste regulations provided that businesses clean or dispose of them properly.

Wipes are used in conjunction with solvents for cleaning and other purposes by tens of thousands of facilities in numerous industrial sectors, such as printers, automobile repair shops and manufacturers of automobiles, electronics, furniture and chemicals.

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