California expected to pass bill banning PFAS in food packaging; Michigan legislators reintroduce bill to ban PFAS, phthalates, and bisphenols in food packaging; Massachusetts’ Toxics Use Reduction Act program votes for expanding reporting requirements
Maine bill on phthalates and PFAS
U.S. State of Maine passes legislation aiming to eliminate phthalates and PFAS from food packaging from 2020, establish a system to assess further substances of concern in FCMs
Food packaging regulation in Latin America
Keller and Heckman LLP reprints Food Packaging Bulletin article giving an update on the regulation of food packaging in Latin America (MERCOSUR block)
DuPont separates from fluorinated chemicals
DuPont announces sales of Titanium Technologies and Chemicals& Fluoroproducts businesses, part of portfolio enhancement
Costco adopts chemicals policy
Retailer Costco commits to reducing hazardous chemicals in consumer products, publishes list of chemicals of concern targeted in its product screening program
ECHA: restriction proposal on BPA
The Risk Assessment Committee (RAC) of ECHA agrees to restrict BPA in thermal paper
Draft of EU chemicals strategy shows internal disagreements
Leaked draft version developed by DG Environment and commented on by DG Grow; proposed mixture assessment factor not supported by DG Grow, overall wording requested to be ‘less definitive and committing’; NGOs concerned revisions could place public health behind corporate interests
Maine publishes food contact chemicals of concern list, postpones PFAS ban
US state of Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) publishes food packaging chemicals of high concern list; mandated by state legislation and limited to 10 chemicals; DEP postpones ban on PFAS in food packaging originally meant to begin in 2022; phthalate ban went into effect January 1, 2022
Webinar: Removing EDCs from products
Webinar with compliance manager from Danish retailer which removed parabens and BPA from private label products
Push for BPA warning labels in California
Consumer advocates call on Californians to make the State properly enforce warning label rules for canned foods and beverages containing BPA in the can linings