A new blog post published on September 17, 2014 by the advocacy group for chemical safety ChemTrust raises concerns about consumer protection from hazardous chemicals in food contact materials (FCMs). Following the publication of the Food Packaging Forum’s study, ChemTrust sent a letter to the EU Health Commissioner Toni Borg calling for better regulation of FCMs (FPF reported). Borg’s head of cabinet, Joanna Darmanin, responded admitting that the current legislation does not fully cover all types of FCMs. ChemTrust’s Executive Director Michael Warhurst thus concludes that the current EU regulation does not offer adequate consumer protection against endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs). ChemTrust emphasized that to protect consumers the European Commission (EC) needs to act rapidly to ensure that all FCMs only contain approved chemicals and are free from EDCs. Recently, the Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) agreed to analyze the situation and plans to report the results within a year.

The new EC is scheduled to take office on November 1, 2014. On September 10, 2014 the incoming President Juncker announced his team and their portofolios (FPF reported). As such, the new Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis from Lithuania has been informed of his portfolio, which does not include chemicals or packaging.

Read more

Micheal Warhurst (September 17, 2014). “Commission studying the problem of chemicals in packaging – but will the new Commissioner act on the results?ChemTrust.

Reference

Birgit Geueke, Charlotte C. Wagner, Jane Muncke (2014). “Food contact substances and chemicals of concern: A comparison of inventories.Food Additives and Contaminants, Part A 31, 1438-1450.

Share