Scientific study performs hazard prioritization on chemicals in printing inks and adhesives applied to plastic food packaging; uses publicly available “substances of concern” lists and an in silico tool; identifies 636 high and 1024 medium priority substances of which 696 ranked as “very high priority substances” by experts
EU human biomonitoring conference
Austrian Presidency and EU Commission host conference on European Human Biomonitoring Initiative, September 28, 2018 in Vienna; registration open until June 30, 2018
Safe and Sustainable by Design: 1st EU stakeholder workshop
European Commission holds workshop with stakeholders to discuss criteria for chemicals that are Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD); implementation of EU’s Chemical Strategy for Sustainability (CSS) will depend on clear and implementable criteria for SSbD, amongst other central pillars such as essential use and generic risk assessment
Standardizing Benchmark Dose (BMD) calculations
New study assesses reliability of standardized Benchmark Dose calculations, more dose groups and lower number of animals make for better BMD model
New and expanded UP Scorecard version released
Single-Use Material Decelerator (SUM’D) releases new version of food packaging assessment tool UP Scorecard; featuring expanded regionalization capabilities including Europe, functionality to add new customized containers, a simplified scoring system, and a streamlined presentation of results
Biocides in FCMs: legal follow-ups needed
Authorization of biocides discussed at the Biocides Symposium ’15 in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Chemical migration from paper and board into dry foods
New study investigates migration from paper and board into fruits and vegetables, food simulant overestimates migration, washing, peeling and cooking largely ineffective at removing contaminants
Quantifying migration of whitening agents from plastics
EU reference laboratory for FCMs develops analytical method for quantification of fluorescent whitening agents migrating from plastic beverage cups
Printing ink exposure from FCM significantly underestimated
New study investigates occurrence of photoinitiators in carton board packaging, finds benzophenone present in 50% of samples, surface to mass ratio 6 times higher than in EU legislation
Amazon’s safer chemicals policy
Amazon is the first primarily e-commerce retailer to publish chemicals policy and restricted substances list