Non-profit organization Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families publishes second annual ranking of retailers’ safer chemicals programs; 10 out of 30 retailers take adequate action on toxic chemicals
Summer 2023 research snapshot: PFAS in food packaging, food, and potential health impacts
A summary of eight studies; scientists quantify per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in French fast food packaging; detect eleven PFAS in baking trays from China but not Spain; find PFAS in straws made of paper, bamboo, glass, and plastic; “compostable” service ware can contaminate compost with PFAS; find PFAS in edible oil worldwide; further articles focus on PFAS in drinking water, in Asia, and effects on child respiratory health
Study finds composite packaging causes more packaging waste
German Gesellschaft für Verpackungsmarktforschung finding paper composite packaging use will increase until 2025, uses 40% more material; paper composites cause more packaging waste, cause problems for recycling, replace hardly or non-recyclable or hardly recyclable plastic packaging, compete with improvement of plastic recycling; may be harmful to circular economy (in German)
Shipping company to ban export of plastic waste
Shipping company CMA GCM announces it will no longer accept plastic scrap on board its container ships starting April 15, 2022; being implemented six weeks earlier than originally announced during One Ocean Summit in February 2022; meant to reduce waste exports to where “recycling or recovery cannot be assured”
Food Contact Compliance
First meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-1) to develop a legally binding instrument on plastic pollution
Communicating on Adhesives in Plastic Recycling
Food packaging in the circular economy: Overview of chemical safety aspects for commonly used materials
Toxicological and chemical profiling of plastic migrates
Scientific study investigates in vitro toxicity and composition of chemical mixtures migrating from everyday plastic products made of eight polymer types; demonstrates that thousands of chemicals can leach under realistic use conditions, including compounds toxic in vitro that contribute to human exposure; emphasizes the importance to rethink and redesign plastics to achieve safe materials
New method to evaluate effects of electron beam treatment on chemical migration in PP films
New two-dimensional gas chromatography method assesses effects of electron beam treatment of polypropylene films on composition of chemical migration extracts.