Over 7,000 safety rule violations at Dutch chemical companies in 11 years

Chemical companies in the Netherlands often violate safety rules, according to a study by Leiden University and VU University Amsterdam into 3,650 inspection reports. In the period between 2006 and 2017, there were 7,362 violations of the safety rules, ANP reports.

The Netherlands has 494 companies that work with hazardous substances. A small group of these companies was responsible for a large part of the violations. About 34 companies had more than 40 violations each, according to the researchers.

Only about 8 percent of the companies did not break the rules at all in the period investigated.

According to the researchers, it seems that the risk of a serious accident is no greater at a company that breaks the rules than at a company that doesn't. Further research is being done into this.