FSA Scotland Letter, 16 August 2002

PACKAGING - Draft Regulations to Implement in Scotland EC Directive 2002/17/EC on Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food

The FSA are inviting comments on draft proposals for The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (Scotland) (No. 2) Regulations 2002. These draft amending Regulations are intended to implement Commission Directive 2002/17/EC (Official Journal of the EC L58/19-24). This Directive amends Directive 90/128/EEC on plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs for the seventh time.

The proposed Regulations amend the Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations 1998 for the third time, in Scotland. The Food Standards Agency in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will each consult on separate but parallel regulations. The proposed regulations have to be in place by 28th February 2003.

Changes Proposed

The main changes brought about by these amending regulations are to:

• add new monomers to Section A Part I of Schedule 1 to the 1998 Regulations;
• amend the lists of additives in Parts I and II of Schedule 2 to the 1998 Regulations;
• consequentially amend some details in the monomers list;
• change restriction entries for certain monomers.

The draft Regulations also take forward definitions from the 1998 Regulations and implement some expressions in Directive 2002/17/EC that are not already in national laws.

These proposed amending Regulations are the second this year. The first, The Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food (Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2002, covered two other more complex EC Directives, 2001/62/EC and 2002/16/EC. However, two small parts of the Annex to 2002/17/EC were incorporated in those earlier draft regulations (Annex 1 (a)(i) and (ii) and 2 (a)(ii) (the entries for Benzaldehyde and Camphor in the latter case)) and do not, therefore appear in these draft proposals.