The 11th Food Packaging Forum (FPF) workshop “Achieving safe and sustainable food packaging: Where are we now?” took place in Zürich, Switzerland on September 28, 2023. Over 150 participants joined in-person or online. This article summarizes the morning presentations around the themes of defining and measuring safe and sustainable food contact materials as well as examples of putting science into action. Recordings of the presentations are available online. There is an additional article focusing on the afternoon sessions sharing case studies from the real world.
What is safe and sustainable food packaging and how can it be measured?
Jane Muncke, managing director of the Food Packaging Forum, laid the foundation for the day’s talks and discussions by sharing the Scientific Advisory Board’s peer-reviewed vision for safer food contact materials, published only two days prior to the workshop (FPF reported).
“Everywhere on the world it’s beautiful, and as a matter of fact it is the only world we have.” Muncke believes the human-caused threats to this world are something that bring the diverse stakeholders at the workshop together. “[Plastic pollution] is a huge threat …another big threat to human health are the chemicals in food packaging.” There are regulations to contend with chemicals exposure from food contact materials (FCMs) such as Article 3 of the EU regulation on FCMs which states, “materials and articles, […], shall be manufactured […] so that, under normal or foreseeable conditions of use, they do not transfer their constituents to food in quantities which could endanger human health.” However, the current system does not live up to this ideal and in fact implementing Article 3 is not possible.
The article presented by Muncke, on behalf of the over 20 authors, lays out at vision of how scientific review of FCMs and regulation could be shifted. It highlights the necessity to considering (1) the whole cocktail of chemicals that migrate from the final food contact article, including the largely unknown non-intentionally added substances, and (2) broadening toxicological evaluations to cover six broad categories of non-communicable diseases: cancers, cardiovascular diseases, as well as reproductive, brain-related, immunological, and metabolic disorders.
In order for packaging to be fully sustainable, Muncke claims it must (1) enable circular and fair business models that deliver nutritious, safe, and culturally appropriate foodstuffs to people; (2) have no adverse impacts that destabilize the planet’s ecosystems in the long term across its entire life cycle; and (3) internalize all (external) costs to people and the planet.
One function of (sustainable) packaging is to help foods last longer, and thus lower food waste (FPF reported, also here). However, packaged food items can at the same time encourage the purchase of more food than can be consumed, which increases food waste (FPF reported, also here). Claudia Giacovelli of the United Nations Environment Program outlined the work she and others at UNEP published in 2022 to recommend when packaging waste outweighed the environmental cost of food waste. She also explained which type of packaging to use depending on (1) if consumers/regulators are willing to change behavior; and (2) whether the region has a poor or good waste management system (FPF reported).
“By looking at all impacts, that a product or a service will incur through it’s life cycle… we make sure we don’t shift the burden into another life cycle.” Giacovelli and colleagues collected studies which compared products, looked at their full life cycle, and transparently reported the underlying methodology. Studies commissioned by industry needed to be peer-reviewed in order to account for potential bias. She made the point that currently, there are not so many studies on reusable packaging. As a result, the recommendations are based on the current system of food packaging and delivery “but perhaps we can go beyond that and actually challenge what we currently have in our shelves.”
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) works with businesses, institutions, governments, academia and NGOs in order to achieve the transition to a circular economy. Bahar Koyuncu described the recent work of the EMF on a circular economy for plastics and for scaling reuse solutions. She also highlighted that they will shortly publish a report which will cover the impact of scale of conversion from single-use to reuse, return rates, sharedness of infrastructure, and packaging standardization in the beverage bottles, dry food packaging, wet food packaging, and personal care industries.
Based on the reports’ results, Koyuncu sees large benefits for the four reuse program sectors such as in environmental impacts (e.g. 25-69% GCG emission reduction compared to single use); plus economic and societal impacts (the cost of reusable packaging can compete with single use and create jobs). “Circular economy for food packaging is possible if we eliminate hazardous chemicals and unnecessary plastics, if we innovate for alternative delivery systems… and if we circulate these safe materials in a safe manner.”
Achieving safe & sustainable food packaging: Putting science into action
Malte Gallée, Member of the European Parliament, joined the workshop remotely to describe the EU policy process and the importance of science in forming effective policy. First, he gave a brief overview of the roles of the European Commission, the EU Council, and the European Parliament. Gallée followed up with the importance of impact assessments, a tool to gather evidence and describe the consequences of future scenarios. Regarding the assessment of chemicals, he pointed out that often legal action is only taken if very clear evidence for potential harm exists – and not in the absence of data. And this happens even though the latter would be better aligned with the precautionary principle that should be followed in the EU (FPF reported, also here). Gallée called for making science visible so that it can be considered by policymakers.
According to Gallée, the European Commission has a lot of resources to invest in research, Members of the parliament (MoP) “rely a lot on the findings of the Commission” and the input of many stakeholders (scientists, industry, civil society). But this diversity of input can be “really tricky” because of the different conclusions that may be presented by different stakeholders. “We need science to also contribute, and also to criticize, and to call out… wrong [not balanced] life cycle assessments” and studies, he emphasized.
The per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) chemical group is one of the few where the work of independent researchers has slowly, and now seemingly all at once, entered the policy arena. While the discussion on PFAS first began in 2001, Martin Scheringer of ETH Zürich and Masaryk University outlined the intense amount of public and policy attention that PFAS has grabbed in even the last year or two.
Investigative journalists in Europe and the US have mapped tens of thousands of sites where PFAS have contaminated the environment and drinking water sources (FPF reported). Scheringer states “we may say that PFAS are the most unsustainable chemicals ever because they don’t go away.”
In the context of food contact materials, Scheringer showed examples from some of the latest research on the use of PFAS in drinking straws and take away packaging made of plant-based materials. These alternatives to plastics can contribute to human exposure to PFAS (FPF reported, also here). Referring to the recent EU restriction proposal on PFAS that received a record-breaking 5600 comments during the public consultation (FPF reported), Scheringer concluded that this high interest in the topic should be used to “innovate beyond PFAS” (FPF reported) and that “it is a myth that our future depends on PFAS.”
The Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) is involved in policy processes all over the globe. Andrés Del Castillo senior attorney with CIEL gave a brief overview of UN policy processes concerning plastics and chemicals. Del Castillo reviewed three processes in particular – the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) framework; the open-ended working group for the Science Policy Panel (SPP); and the Plastics Treaty and Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions.
SAICM Framework is important but not binding. The framework covers all chemicals with the original goal of achieving sound management of chemicals by 2020 (FPF reported). There is now a parallel process for “SAICM beyond 2020.” The SPP runs over the same time frame as the UN Plastics Treaty negotiations but it was established to contribute to further sound management of chemicals and waste, and to prevent chemical pollution (FPF reported). The BRS Conventions are living instruments to internationally ban certain highly hazardous chemicals. Recently, the plastic additive UV328 (CAS 25973-55-1) was added to the Stockholm Convention as a persistent organic pollutant (POP). The listing of UV 328 was the first time means of transportation was considered in the designation, which for UV 328 is plastic pollution (FPF reported).
According to Del Castillo, the Plastics Treaty is a unique negotiating process in that the ambition for the final document has gotten higher as time goes on. Normally, ambition is lost during negotiations but in this case, nations continue to join the High Ambition Coalition to End Plastic Pollution which is advocating for the strongest possible Plastics Treaty and now has over 60 members (FPF reported).
Tim Forsyth, London School of Economics and Political Science, joined remotely to discuss the relatively new SPP on chemicals. Forsyth believes “whilst there is a huge concern about the pollution and the risks coming from chemicals, there’s also a change happening in the way science policy panels try to address these changes.” He went on to explain that this new SPP on chemicals, and others are moving, or should move, from a “chemical up” lens which makes decisions based on the essential properties of chemicals to an “impact/pollution down” approach that is more contextual. “You have to look at the places under which people experience hazards.”
References
Jane Muncke (September 28, 2023). “A vision for safe and sustainable food contact materials.” YouTube.
Claudia Giacovelli (September 28, 2023). “Measuring environmental impacts of food packaging: UNEP’s case studies.” YouTube.
Bahar Koyuncu (September 28, 2023). “A circular economy for food packaging: Learnings and way forward.” YouTube.
Malte Gallée (September 28, 2023). “The importance of science in policy.” YouTube.
Martin Scheringer (September 28, 2023). “Putting a spotlight on PFAS.” YouTube.
Andrés Del Castillo (September 28, 2023). “UN processes for plastics and chemicals: A view into the current state and outlook.” YouTube.
Tim Forsyth (September 28, 2023). “Understanding the politics of environmental governance processes.” YouTube.
