Flixborough led to a widespread public outcry over process safety. Together with the passage of the UK Health and Safety at Work Act in the same year, it led to (and is often quoted in justification of) a more systematic approach to process safety in UK process industries. UK government regulation of plant processing or storing large inventories of hazardous materials is currently under the Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH). In Europe, the Flixborough disaster and the Seveso disaster in 1976 led to development of the Seveso Directive in 1982 (currently Directive 2012/18/EU issued in 2012).