The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has released rulings on market approval applications for plastic materials used for packaging in contact with food and drink. Its concern is ensuring compliance with directive 89/109/EEC on "materials and articles intended to come into contact with foodstuffs", which aims to prevent harmful contamination. EFSA inherited the task of policing new substances under its founding 2002 regulation and established a panel on food additives, flavourings, processing aids and materials in contact with food the following year. It is now working in earnest, last month, for instance, ruling that polyester 1.4-butanediol with caprolactone could be used without restriction. More complex rulings were made regarding some metallic additives to plastics, for instance silver zeolite A (silver zinc sodium ammonium alumino silicate). The panel set a maximum content in polymers of 10% of silver zeolite A containing less than 5% silver, adding rules on maximum ambient temperature and storage time.
