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Stakeholders discuss waste management challenges of plastics

Publications from government, academia, civil society organizations, and consultancies paint problematic picture of a circular plastics economy; plastic packaging waste per person found to increase over last decade; low percentage of plastic produced is effectively recycled; pyrolysis (a type of chemical recycling) of plastics produces 9x more emissions than mechanical recycling; “biodegradable” and “compostable” plastics found to not break down in home compost systems

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Several studies determine chemical migration from food packaging

Researchers from several European and Chinese institutions develop methods to explore chemicals in food contact materials (FCMs); report styrene migration from different polystyrene FCMs into several food matrices; detect photoinitiators in paper FCMs and chlorinated paraffins in green tea and its packaging; find irradiation treatment of metalized polypropylene to reduce migration of tested chemicals