Topics
microplastics
April 20, 2021
Australian government announces National Plastic Plan; outlines approaches to plastic recycling, replacing unnecessary plastics, reducing plastics’ impact on the environment; proposes investments in prevention, recycling, consumer education, research, and development
Reading time: 1 minute
April 9, 2021
Zero Waste Europe announces publication of nine factsheets as part of the UNWRAPPED Project; developed to help communicate human health risks associated with chemicals in food packaging; experts call for industry and policymakers to limit single-use packaging, take precautionary approach towards hazardous chemicals in food packaging
Reading time: 1 minute
March 1, 2021
Article published in Science lays out key knowledge gaps hindering human health risk assessments of microplastics, highlights lack of analytical tools to assess small microplastics and nanoplastics; estimated low exposure does not imply low risk
Topics: microplastics
Reading time: 2 minutes
January 13, 2021
European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) postpones colloquium on micro- and nano-plastics in food to 6-7 May, 2021 in Lisbon, Portugal
Reading time: 1 minute
January 5, 2021
Research study finds microplastic in placentas of four healthy women, detected both on the maternal and fetal sides of the placenta, membrane in-between; particles could enter the women’s body through oral or respiratory exposure, potential long-term effects for the fetus to be investigated
Topics: microplastics
Reading time: 1 minute
November 3, 2020
European Commission signals that it is preparing a wider set of actions to initiate impact assessment on non-intentional microplastics emissions; would include sources such as car tires, textiles, plastic pellets; stakeholders call for more research to address current data gaps in microplastic toxicity
Topics: microplastics
Reading time: 1 minute
October 28, 2020
Special issue of peer-reviewed journal Birth Defects Research presents a collection of articles on plastics’ effects on human health, with a particular focus on early development
Reading time: 4 minutes
October 20, 2020
Article published in Nature Food describes release of microplastics from polypropylene baby bottles following cleaning and sterilization steps; releases of up to 16.2 million particles per liter, average infant exposure from feeding in the range of 14,600 to 4.5 million microplastic particles per infant per day
Topics: microplastics
Reading time: 2 minutes
October 12, 2020
European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and ChemSec submit comments to CARACAL subgroup on polymer registrations under REACH; recommend modifying proposed criteria for polymers requiring registration, suggest recognizing micro- and nanoplastic generation as inherent hazardous property of plastic polymers; call for mandatory pre-registration with submission of defined minimal dataset for all polymers
Reading time: 2 minutes
September 1, 2020
European Environmental Bureau (EEB) disapproves of updates the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) made to its restriction proposal for microplastics in consumer and professional products; criticizes increase in microplastic size limit to 100 nm; ECHA defends changes, argues that regulation must be enforceable, cites lacking analytical techniques
Topics: ECHA, microplastics
Reading time: 3 minutes
