On December 24, 2021, Malaysia’s Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) published a proposal to update its 1994 Occupational Safety and Health Act. The update would revise the permitted uses for certain known carcinogenic substances. Seven substances in the proposal are used in food contact according to the Food Packaging Forum’s Food Contact Chemicals database (FCCdb): (i) 4-aminodiphenyl (CAS 92-67-1), (ii) benzidine (CAS 92-87-5), (iii) 4-nitrodiphenyl (CAS 92-93-3), (iv) crocidolite (CAS 12001-28-4), (v) benzene (CAS 71-43-2), (vi) carbon tetrachloride (CAS 56-23-5), and (vii) n-hexane (CAS 110-54-3). Stakeholders can comment on the proposed changes until February 24, 2022.
In September 2021, Malaysia announced a plan to improve existing and create new chemicals regulation to “[strengthen] its governance towards international best practice.” In particular, “the use of environmentally harmful pesticides and toxic chemicals will be phased-out” to be replaced with “environment-friendly alternatives.” The update to the Occupational Safety and Health Act is one of the first actions the Malaysian government has undertaken under the new plan.
According to reporting from Vietnam Briefing, on January 1, 2022, Vietnam’s revised Law on Environmental Protection went into effect which obligates manufacturers and importers to ensure their products can be properly recycled within the country. For goods “containing toxic substances, which are hardly recyclable or impede collection and treatment” importers and producers must pay the Vietnam Environmental Protection Fund to support local waste treatment programs.
The Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) on January 19, 2022, published findings from an investigation claiming that Unilever “secretly shuttered” a chemical recycling facility in Indonesia. Unilever launched the CreaSolv plant in 2017 to be “the first in the world to be able to recycle and reuse multilayer plastic packaging waste.” According to GAIA’s reporting, the plant was closed after two years “due to insurmountable logistical, financial, and technical challenges.” A Unilever spokesperson says the facility is still operational and “its current failure… is a necessary step in the learning process” according to reporting by Packaging Insights. However, GAIA is not the first to publish reports of chemical recycling projects, including CreaSolv, being quietly shut down. Reuters published similar investigative work in July 2021.
In late 2021, Sri Lanka submitted a proposal to the International Maritime Organization for plastic pellets, also called nurdles, to be classified as hazardous. The classification would subject plastic pellet shipments to increased “international guidelines and requirements for loading, unloading, packaging, and emergency response protocols, with clear labelling of containers carrying pellets, and improved stowage instructions.” This comes after the crash of the MV X-Press Pearl off the coast of Sri Lanka in May of 2021, which spilled 11,000 tons of plastic pellets into Sri Lanka’s coastal waters. The spill was “the largest single plastic pollution event to have ever happened,” according to Sri Lanka’s proposal. And in the months since the accident, plastic pellets have spread across 750km of shoreline, up to 1.2m meters deep in the sands, and they are now breaking down into micro- and nanoplastics.
Sri Lanka is urging the International Maritime Organization to take immediate steps “to regulate and better coordinate the handling, management, and transportation of plastic pellets through the entire supply chain.” They suggest actions including that all plastic pellets, flakes and powders be classified as dangerous goods, the establishment of “a separate specialized recovery mechanism (similar to oil spills),” and to “hold all companies involved in making, using or transporting pellets accountable by law.”
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Government of Malaysia (September 27, 2021). “Twelfth Malaysia Plan: 2021-2025, A prosperous, inclusive, sustainable Malaysia.”
Malaysia’s DOSH (January 2022). “Public Communication Proposed Amendments to the Schedule Prohibition of Use Materials.” (pdf, in Malay and English)
Lam Lye Ching (January 11, 2022). “Malaysia consulting on draft revised list of carcinogenic substances.” Chemical Watch
Cece Nguyen (January 17, 2022). “Vietnam’s Circular Economy: Revised Law on Environmental Protection.” Vietnam Briefing
Apolat Legal (January 20, 2022). “Stop producing, importing single-use plastic products after December 31st, 2023.”
Thi Nguyen (October 6, 2021). “EPR – Effective mechanism for environmental protection.” Vietnam Law & Legal Forum
Down to Earth (January 19, 2022). “Unilever’s plastic sachet chemical ‘recycling’ a failure in Indonesia, says GAIA.” Down to Earth
Louis Gore-Langton (January 25, 2022). “Devil in the detail: Unilever denies “PR stunt” in Indonesia after halting €10M recycling project.” Packaging Insights
Joe Brock and John Geddie (July 29, 2021). “From Shell to Unilever, plastics polluters back recycling-tech flops.” Reuters
Sri Lanka (October 1, 2021). “Follow-up work emananting from the action plan to address marine plastic litter from ships.” International Maritime Organization (pdf)
Eline Schaart (December 2, 2021). “Sri Lanka asks international body to classify plastic pellets as hazardous substance.” Chemical Watch
