On the morning of the Food Packaging Forum’s 11th annual workshop, speakers share processes to measure sustainable food packaging while accounting for multiple concerns; three speakers share findings from developing frameworks to make packaging safer, account for tradeoffs, and reduce plastic packaging use; three speakers share how policy is developed at the United Nations and European Union
New study shows impact of oral dosing on free BPA levels
Sublingual absorption leads to free BPA in serum of test animals, delivers plausible explanation for previous human biomonitoring findings
Restaurant food likely source of phthalate exposure
New study evaluates NHANES data and finds link between food consumption at restaurants, cafeterias, fast-food outlets and increased urinary phthalate levels
Plasticizers linked to oxidative stress
New study associates phthalate exposure to oxidative stress during pregnancy, indicative of a variety of health effects
When the dose does not make the poison
Scientists comment on first proposal to integrate non-monotonic dose response in chemical risk assessment framework
Experimental verification of migration modelling
Study uses novel method for determining partition coefficients for migration from polyolefins into foodstuffs and food simulants
FPF Workshop 2015: Videos available
Video recordings and presentation slides of the 2015 FPF Workshop are now available online
Individual-level data published for BPA oral absorption study
New study provides urine and serum profiles of BPA in 10 volunteers who participated in Teeguarden et al. (2015) study
ToxCast assays need improving
New study shows the ability of ToxCast assays to predict obesogens is unreliable; senior researcher comments on features in need of improvement
Stakeholders discuss global plastic treaty
Friends of Europe hosts online debate bringing together stakeholder groups from industry, regulatory agencies, and NGOs; considers how to achieve a circular plastics economy, discusses the necessity of a global plastic treaty, prevention of plastic waste trade and illegal waste dumping, extended producer responsibility schemes (EPRs), need for unified EU plastic waste market; discussions build on report by European Environment Agency, case study by Zero Waste Europe and report by Ellen MacArthur Foundation