EU Submits the Regulatory Changes for Plastic Food Contact Materials to WTO

Nguồn: 中鼎检测 Ngày: 2015-06-02 Duyệt qua: 6200

Recently, the European Commission submitted its intention to significantly amend Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 for Food Contact Materials (FCM) made from plastic to the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The most important amendments include:

added substances to the positive list of approved substances;
specific migration limits for newly added metals;
clarification on specific migration test conditions;
the regulation's scope with regard to rubber FCM.

Specific details as follows:

Items	Contents
Scope	Clarification of rubber definition and that is not within the scope of the Regulation. However, vulcanised rubber used as an additive to plastics (e.g. certain thermoplastic Elastomers) should remain in the scope of the Regulation.
Introduction of testing conditions	Introduction of new temperature requirements for specific migration conditions at T > 175°C and specific conditions for contact times above 30 days at room temperature and below.
Specific migration limits for metals	Limits for newly added metals: Aluminum: ≤1 mg/kg food or food simulant Nickel: ≤0.02 mg/kg food or food simulant Zinc: ≤5 mg/kg food or food simulant Other metal migration limits remain unchanged.
Migration limit units for caps	Removal of the possibility to express the migration from caps in mg/d㎡ and usage mg/kg food.
Positive list of approved substances	Addition of 8 organic substances to the list of approved substances.

The deadline of the public comments of this draft is June 28, 2015. The proposed date of publication in the Official Journal of the European Union and adoption by Member States of the European Economic Area is December 2015.