Foodlaw-Reading
Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Commission Consultation, 6 December 2021
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Commission consultation: Draft Commission Regulation on recycled plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foods, and repealing Regulation (EC) No 282/2008. A copy of the draft regulation is available on this site (click on image). There is a separate draft annex available - see Draft Annex Recycled Plastics. |
The consultation is open until 10 January 2022. For more details, see the consultation page: Recycled plastic in food packaging (updated rules). The following are the first 5 recitals taken from the draft regulation to provide the context - see the draft for full details.
As part of the 2015 circular economy action plan, the Commission identified the increase in plastic recycling as an essential prerequisite for the transition to a circular economy and committed to address this sector in a targeted way. The Commission therefore adopted in 2018 a European strategy for plastics in a circular economy which presents key commitments for action at Union level in order to curb adverse impacts of plastic pollution. It strives to extend the plastic recycling capacity in the Union, and to increase recycled content in plastic products and packaging. As a large proportion of plastic packaging materials are used as food packaging, the policy can only achieve its objectives if also the recycled plastic content in food packaging increases.
A pre-requisite to any increase in recycled content in food packaging and other food contact materials remains the need to secure a high level of protection of human health. However, wasted plastic materials and articles originating from food use may contain contaminants incidental to that use, which potentially compromises the safety and quality of recycled plastic food contact materials and articles. While such plastic waste should not be contaminated with a relatively high amount of specific substances known to be hazardous to human health, as could be the case for instance in plastics originating from industrial purposes, the identity and level of incidental contaminants that could be present in collected food packaging is undetermined, random, depend on the source and collection method of the plastic waste, and may vary between collections. Therefore, the plastic should always be decontaminated during its recycling to a level at which it is certain that remaining contaminants cannot endanger human health or affect the food otherwise, if used for the production of recycled plastic food contact materials and articles. To ensure that food consumers and food business operators can trust decontaminated materials, and that there is a uniform interpretation of the extent of decontamination that is regarded as sufficient, the decontamination of recycled plastic materials and articles intended for contact with food should be subject to a uniform set of rules.
(3) Commission Regulation (EC) No 282/2008 already established specific requirements for recycling processes to ensure that recycled plastic materials and articles intended for food contact comply with Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004. Regulation (EC) No 282/2008 did however not apply to all recycling technologies. At the time of its adoption, only a few recycling technologies existed, particularly the mechanical recycling of polyethylene terephthalate (‘PET’) and chemical depolymerisation applied by feedstock recycling, as well as plastic materials originating from product loops which are in a closed and controlled chain. Also scraps and off-cuts were being recycled, and functional barriers were used to contain contaminated recycled plastic. While Regulation (EC) No 282/2008 set out rules for plastic recycled with certain of these recycling technologies, the use of other materials was subject to Commission Regulation (EU) No 10/2011. That Regulation however does not define rules for partially depolymerised substances or oligomers, does not allow the presence of contaminants classified as ‘mutagenic’, ‘carcinogenic’ or ‘toxic to reproduction’ when used behind a functional barrier, and requires that impurities are identified and subject to risk assessment in all cases. In addition, innovative novel technologies are constantly being developed. It is, therefore, appropriate to replace Regulation (EC) No 282/2008 with new rules covering all those existing recycling technologies which cannot adequately be regulated by Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 as well as capable of covering future recycling technologies.
