France bans BPA in all food contact packaging

The French National Assembly has passed a bill that bans all food contact packaging containing bisphenol A (BPA) from 2014.

With 348 votes supporting the ban against 2 votes, the assembly is also imposing the usage of warning labels on any packaging containing BPA on products for pregnant women and children under the age of three.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is an organic compound used in manufacturing polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resins, and is an ingredient in the internal coating of metal food and beverage cans to protect the food from direct contact with the can. As BPA is estrogenic endocrine disrupter that can mimic the body’s own hormones, it could lead to negative health effects, particularly for pregnant women and young children.

In recent years, several governments have raised concerns regarding health safety issues and consumer product packaging containing BPA.

Prior to the ban, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) released two reports on 27 September stating that even in minimal doses, BPA has negative health effects on laboratory animals as well as on humans.

Based on its findings, ANSES called for the substitution of BPA in applications such as food contact materials, toys and child-care products, to protect infants and pregnant women.

Following the ANSES report publication, French health minister Xavier Bertrand expressed his support to the BPA ban, making him the second cabinet member to support the bill after ecology minister Nancy Kosciusko-Morizet endorsed the proposal.

Plastics association protests against BPA ban
Meanwhile, the decision by the French National Assembly to ban BPA was lambasted by plastics industry trade association Plastics Europe, which believes that the wholesale ban could destroy the European internal market for food packaging.

Plastics Europe spokeswoman Jasmin Bird said, "Having inconsistency among consumer safety-decisions in Europe is not helpful for both European industry and European consumers alike.

"If safety decisions or potentially new safety laws are no longer based upon the weight of sound scientific evidence, industry and consumers alike can no longer rely on the existing legal and political framework."

The organization strongly objected to the ANSES report that prompted the ban proposal, criticizing the basis of ANSES’ assessment and the methodology of the review, which focused more on studies that use non-oral exposure routes such as subcutaneous injection.

Plastics Europe pointed out the inconsistencies of the ANSES report, citing an earlier report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) that said “in non-oral exposure studies, BPA does not pass through the body´s metabolism, where there is comprehensive evidence showing that BPA is efficiently metabolised to an inactive kind of sugar and excreted within hours via urine”.

The EFSA report concluded that exposure to BPA from food contact materials is very low and poses no risk to human health.

The European Commission (EC) has now asked EFSA to re-examine the issue in light of the ANSES report, according to an EFSA spokesperson who explained EC is seeking its “scientific advice on whether the reports contain elements that would lead EFSA to reconsider the opinion on BPA published in September 2011”.

The results of the new EFSA study will be released by the end of November 2011.

Source: Plastics Europe