Billed as “a one-stop shop for policymakers, advocates, and consumers,” in July 2022, Zero Waste Europe, CHEMTrust, and HEAL launched a new website for their Toxic Free Food Packaging campaign. The website provides a hub for information and resources about harmful chemicals in food contact materials (FCMs). It also includes products from the Food Packaging Forum such as the brand and retailer initiatives database (BRID), food contact chemicals database (FCCdb), and database on migrating and extractable food contact chemicals (FCCmigex). Moreover, it provides updates on the revision of European Union (EU) FCM legislation and recommendations on how citizens can call for toxic-free food packaging.
In May 2022, researchers from the German consumer organization Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband (VZBV) reported consumers are concerned about food packaging safety while having little understanding of chemicals in packaging and assuming all FCMs and their components have been tested for safety (FPF reported). In reality, recent analysis by the European Environmental Bureau found that it can take the EU 20 years to remove a single harmful chemical from the market after it has been introduced (FPF reported).
In June, the European Commission published an evaluation of the FCM regulation which found that “overall, the efficiency of the FCM legislation appears to be sub-optimal” (FPF reported). The evaluation of the EU’s FCM regulation began in 2018 with a stakeholder workshop (FPF reported), followed in 2019 with a public consultation (FPF reported) and another stakeholder workshop (FPF reported).
Reference
Toxic Free Food Packaging (July 2022). “Toxic Free Food Packaging.”
