The first full week of June 2023 was the European Union’s annual Green Week conference and event series. Due to the ongoing work on the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR, FPF reported), the delayed Food Contact Materials (FCMs) regulation (FPF reported), and both the World Circular Economy Forum and the second round of UN Plastics Treaty negotiations (FPF reported) taking place the week before, plastics and packaging was the focus of several Green Week events.
June 5 – What we need to ensure the safety of food packaging
Malte Gallée, Member of the European Parliament, along with Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) hosted and organized, respectively, a panel at the Parliament to discuss “[w]hat we need to ensure the safety of food packaging.” The panel was composed of individuals from business, civil society, and research, including the Food Packaging Forum’s managing director Jane Muncke along with EU officials Bastiaan Schupp, FCM team leader for DG Sante, and Wolfgang Trunk, circular economy team leader for DG Environment.
The panelists each spoke for a few minutes about their experience and research in the food packaging field which Messrs. Schupp and Trunk responded to with information about the EU policies their offices are currently working on. After initial statements, panelists had a moderated discussion on “how the EU laws – and the PPWR in particular – should truly minimize impacts of packaging on consumers health and materials circularity.”
Schupp said that, “the present [FCM] regulation mostly functions, but there are some deficiencies” which Muncke rebutted, citing a 2016 EU Parliament report that found EU FCM regulations do not sufficiently protect human health, and that there was a need for change (FPF reported). Following the 2016 report, several stakeholder meetings and a regulatory review culminated in the conclusion that the regulation must be revised, originally planned for the end of 2022 (in the EU’s Farm to Fork Strategy, FPF reported) but now postponed (FPF reported). In light of the fact that European citizens are unnecessarily being exposed every day to known hazardous chemicals used or present in FCMs, Muncke said that she would suspect some greater sense of urgency from those tasked with protecting human health.
The discussion boils down to the definition of safety under Article 3 of the FCM regulation, which states that the quantities of chemicals transferring from FCMs into food must not affect human health. While a nice ambition, the definition is held back by three concerns, (i) not all chemicals migrating from FCMs are known, and therefore cannot be assessed for their health impacts; (ii) for some chemicals, unsafe quantities may be so low that they cannot be practically enforced – like in the case of BPA (FPF reported) – and therefore warrant bans; and (iii) some FCMs have a high chemical complexity, leading to dozens if not hundreds of chemicals migrating at the same time – with the potential for mixture toxicity, as for mixtures, thresholds established for individual chemicals are not necessarily applicable.
Reuse is a large topic in plastic waste, FCM, and circular economy discussions (FPF reported). When asked how to make reuse a more viable option economically, Eleonore Blandeau from Eternity Systems said that “reuse already exists at large scale” in business to business, but that more focus must now be placed on consumer behavior to integrate them in a new system for business to consumer reusable packaging.
Wolfgang Trunk (DG Environment) stated that the Commission is considering revising the proposed PPWR Article 5 to consider the generation of hazardous substances when recycling.
Host MEP Malte Gallée highlighted the urgent need for standardized reusable packaging, for the sake of convenience. He stressed that the focus should be towards using more inert materials (than the currently available plastics) for such standardizations. “Democracies can create the rules for necessary change in the marketplace” which would allow innovation in terms of materials and business models.
June 6 – Plastics’ Circular Economy: Balancing Consumer Trends & Known Health Risks
The next day, Minderoo Foundation managed a partner event with panelists discussing plastics and human health, a topic Minderoo is heavily involved in (FPF reported).
Aurel Ciobanu Dordea, director of circular economy in DG Environment, gave an overview of current EU work related to plastics including the circular economy action plan (FPF reported), single-use plastics directive (FPF reported), bioplastics policy (FPF reported), and the PPWR. They discussed some of the setbacks from the SUPD including how the directive is implemented in practice, there have been some “unpleasant surprises” (FPF reported) as well as slow uptake in some Member States (FPF reported). For the PPWR, the reuse targets are a “battle ground” (FPF reported).
Larissa Copello de Souza of Zero Waste Europe praised the PPWR’s material-neutral approach. She highlighted how the single-use plastics directive has mostly encouraged a shift from one single-use material to another, while the EU should work to address single-use packaging as a whole. Romane Colleu of CITEO, a France-based non-profit company helping businesses lower impacts of packaging, pointed out that the motivation for reuse in France was created through legislative reuse targets but consumers need to be brought along so they know to participate and return packaging.
Muncke was asked to share her “main scientific recommendations to improve food packaging safety.” She had four points, (i) remove hazardous chemicals; (ii) improve safety assessments to include overall migration; (iii) focus on incorporating more inert materials; and (iv) take a food systems approach – incorporating how food is produced and consumed.
Sirpa Pietikäinen MEP from Finland commented, “if you don’t know [what’s in the material], don’t put it in contact with food.” They discussed concerns around endocrine disrupting chemicals and stated Eco-design regulation (FPF reported) should include banning endocrine disrupting chemicals from food packaging.
All in all, Pietikäinen summed up the challenges facing many EU goals and regulatory updates, “change is always difficult for human beings.”
References
ZWE (June 5, 2023). “What we need to ensure the safety of food packaging.”
ZWE (June 5, 2023). “What we need to ensure the safety of food packaging.” YouTube
ZWE (June 6, 2023). “Malte Gallée, MEP calls for “a focus on reusable options” at Zero Waste Europe’s food packaging event.”
Jane Muncke (June 6, 2023). “Notes from Plastics’ Circular Economy: Balancing Consumer Trends & Known Health Risks.”
