News
The Food Packaging Forum reports on recent developments across the food packaging and health field.
July 3, 2020
Industry initiative Vinyl Plus announces creation of tool to assess life cycle impacts of additives used in the production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) products; civil society groups criticize the approach as ‘greenwashing and misleading’
Topics: life cycle assessment, PVC
Reading time: 1 minute
July 2, 2020
European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) announces large enforcement project to check for presence of select hazardous substances regulated under REACH and persistent organic pollutant legislation; communication along supply chain to be evaluated; results to be released in 2023
Reading time: 1 minute
July 2, 2020
European Commission regulation restricts use of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), its salts and PFOA-related compounds as a persistent organic pollutants; sets maximum concentration of 0.025 mg/kg for PFOA and salts, 1 mg/kg for related compounds; series of exemptions also in place
Topics: PFAS, regulation
Reading time: 1 minute
July 1, 2020
International group of scientists publish peer-reviewed article presenting arguments for managing all per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as a single chemical class; recommend allowing only essential uses, applying class-based approach for clean up efforts, setting exposure limits for all PFASs instead of for individual chemicals
Topics: PFAS, regulation
Reading time: 3 minutes
June 30, 2020
Green Brown Blue launches six-part online resource series explaining impacts of single-use packaging and involved processing chain; provides guide to help food service companies switch to reuse programs, directory of international reusable service providers
Topics: reuse
Reading time: 1 minute
June 30, 2020
Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee of European Parliament passes resolution calling for upcoming chemicals strategy to fully apply precautionary and polluter-pays principles; resulting legislation should address and minimize endocrine disrupting and other hazardous chemicals in products including food packaging and recycled materials
Reading time: 2 minutes
June 29, 2020
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) completes survey of South-East Asian consumers and businesses, finds ‘significant disconnect’ between expectations and actions taken to address plastic waste; European Commission (EC) and European Environment Agency (EEA) publish status reports on marine protection efforts in the EU, show mixed results with increase in plastics contamination
Reading time: 2 minutes
June 26, 2020
U.S. California’s Water Resource Control Board adopts definition for microplastics in drinking water; long-term monitoring of microplastics planned in drinking water supplies to understand implications for public health
Topics: microplastics
Reading time: 1 minute
June 25, 2020
French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (Anses) publishes review on presence of engineered nanomaterials in food and food packaging; identifies set of primary uses and substances
Topics: nanomaterials
Reading time: 1 minute
June 25, 2020
European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) identifies four new substances of very high concern (SVHCs) set to be phased-out; two are food contact chemicals including 1-vinylimidazole and 2-methylimidazole
Reading time: 1 minute
