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New US certification focuses on chemicals

Center for Environmental Health and Clean Production Action launch a certified standard for single-use food service ware; three-tiered certification based on the use of safer chemicals; certified products must be recyclable or compostable and cannot contain any chemical from the certification’s restricted list including PFAS, ortho-phthalates, and bisphenols above 1ppm

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EFSA working group updates from March to July 2021

Minutes from recent meetings of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) panel and working groups on food contact materials (FCMs), bisphenol A (BPA), recycling plastics, and phthalates

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Science-based proposals for reducing packaging and increasing recycling rates

Researchers investigate packaging use and recycling as well as improvement options; find globalization and time-deprived society to majorly drive food packaging use and recommend economic degrowth to reduce use; report 11% of Spain’s plastic waste efficiently recycled, well below official reports from waste management companies; emphasize need to change material and packaging design to reach circularity targets

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Blueprint offers vision for US recycling sector

Recycling Leadership Council releases recycling blueprint, identifies role of US federal government in modernizing and standardizing recycling system; suggests three areas for political action: clearer data collection and reporting, nationwide standards and definitions, targeted investments in the recycling sector

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Canada working towards zero plastic waste

Canadian government plans to establish federal plastics registry and release regulatory framework for plastic packaging; aim to improve knowledge of plastic waste, value recovery, and pollution; measures are open for comment until May 18, 2023; NGO urges government to expand ban on non-recyclable plastic packaging and take further action.

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Terminus and BioICEP address multilayer recycling

Research consortium secures 12 million Euro funding, launches projects in-built Triggered Enzymes to Recycle Multi-layers: an Innovation for USes in packaging (Terminus) and The BioInnovation of a Circular Economy for Plastics (BioICEP) ; set goal to solve problems associated with multilayered packaging, transform linear to a circular process

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Review confirms additive approach for chemical mixtures

Systematic review analyzes over 700 mixture studies, confirms additive models are a good approximation, finds research focus primarily on binary mixtures; European Commission (EC) plans mixture assessment factor (MAF) for REACH; development of general mixture risk assessment methods and viable approaches to regulation still needed