What’s changed?

The EU recently legislated to make it easier to use certain recycled plastics in food wrapping and packaging (‘food contact materials’). The EU concluded that its previous legislation on this topic was out of date as it did not cover all plastic recycling technologies.

The new legislation – Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/1616 – on recycled plastic materials and articles intended to come into contact with foods – now extends to cover existing and expected new plastics recycling technologies. The new legislation is applicable in the EU and in Northern Ireland, but not yet in Great Britain (England and Wales and Scotland), where older rules on recycled plastics in food packaging continue to apply.

The concern, as ever, with the use of recycled plastics in food wrapping and packaging is the potential for the plastics to carry over various forms of contamination from their previous use. These uses can, of course, be many and varied and include industrial applications where highly noxious substances harmful to human health might taint the plastic and be difficult to remove, even with the best of new recycling technologies. Microbiological contamination is not usually a concern due to the high temperatures involved in recycling processes.

The new legislation, broadly speaking, focuses on recycling technology, recycling processes, and recycling installations. Under the legislation, technologies must demonstrably ensure the protection of human health, processes must be authorised, and recycling installations must be inspected.  The legislation also provides for an EU register of novel technologies, recyclers, recycling processes, recycling schemes, and decontamination installations, as well as a list of recycling facilities. The register should provide a helpful source of information to food business users of recycled plastic to allow them to verify compliance of plastic materials they have received with the new legislation.

What should I be doing?

If you operate a food business in Northern Ireland, you should consider whether you can benefit from the greater flexibilities which now apply to recycled plastics for food packaging. You might want to raise the new measures with your packaging suppliers to test how they intend to respond to the changing framework for the use of recycled plastics in their product lines. The changes certainly provide an opportunity to promote or develop sustainability credentials, either now or in the near term.

If you are GB based, but export to Northern Ireland or the EU, you may still want to be aware of the changes in case EU customers raise any technical queries with you on the mistaken assumption that the new food contact materials rules are available to GB businesses.

How we can help

Our food lawyers have a detailed understanding of the complicated legislation governing food contact materials. We can help you to ensure that you stay on the right side of the regulatory requirements and to navigate legal divergence between GB and EU markets. Feel free to contact us for an intial, without obligation, chat about these or other food law related matters; we’d be delighted to show you how we could help your food business turn regulation into growth opportunity.