Industry organisation Plastics Recyclers Europe (PRE, Brussels / Belgium; www.plasticsrecyclers.eu) has urged the European Commission to authorise the use of recycled plastic materials in food applications as a matter of urgency. PRE said the Commission established regulation EC 282/2008 to allow food-contact use nine years ago, but has since failed to officially authorise the recycling processes that have been positively evaluated by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA, Parma / Italy; www.efsa.europa.eu). To date, PRE said the EFSA has adopted more than 140 positive scientific opinions on the safety of the plastics recycling process for food use.

PRE’s vice president and chairman of the PET working group, Casper van den Dungen, said EU businesses were still in a “legislative no-man’s land” due to the years of delay. He commented, “This uncertainty leads to decline in investments and more importantly to a possible mistrust in the legislation ruling food-contact materials.” He noted that companies had invested more than EUR 500m in plants to transform plastic recylate into materials suitable for packaging and food-contact applications.

Other organisations have echoed PRE’s comments, including Petcore Europe (Brussels; https://petcore-europe.org), the European Plastics Converters (EuPC, Brussels; www.plasticsconverters.eu) and the European Federation of Bottled Waters (EFBW, Brussels; www.efbw.org).

PRE said the Commission’s authorisation would harmonise the market and remove the current legal uncertainty in trading recycled materials for food contact. It would also drive the circular economy by opening new markets for plastic recyclates.