Summary of responses to call for evidence on plastic food contact materials containing bamboo and similar plant-based materials as additives

Introduction

This consultation - Call for Evidence: Plastic food contact materials containing bamboo and similar plant-based material as additives - was issued on 06 June 2023 and closed on 12 December 2023.

It was launched to gather further information that would help inform the assessment of the long-term safety of plastic composites containing bamboo and similar plant-based materials. The evidence would also help inform the assessment criteria for future regulated product applications concerning botanicals in plastic food contact materials being placed on the market in Great Britain. 

The key information which the call for evidence sought views on were:

• any available information/data on the safety assessment of these products, including toxicological testing and relevant toxicological data
• any testing that has been carried out that informs the safety and stability of plastic composites in its proposed use
• sourcing and specifications of the plant-based material used within the plastic
• the final product’s full list of ingredients (including ratios/percentages) and specification
• the manufacturing process of these materials

The UK’s independent scientific advisory body, the Committee on Toxicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (COT), carried out a review of available data on plastic composites containing bamboo in 2022 and published an interim position paper on bamboo composites in food contact materials. The COT concluded that, based upon their initial assessment, the migration of formaldehyde and melamine from bamboo composite cups could be regarded as a potential concern to human health. They further recommended that a more comprehensive risk assessment should be conducted once further data (for example on composition and exposure) became available.

The FSA and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) jointly launched a call for evidence: Plastic food contact materials containing bamboo and similar plant-based material as additives. The call for evidence ran for six months to mid-December 2023.

The FSA is grateful to those who responded. A summary is set out below.

Summary of substantive comments

There were only three substantive comments that were received from businesses that marketed plastic products which contained bamboo or similar plant-based materials. The businesses provided evidence in the form of test reports and compositional data. Given the low number of responses, to protect the sensitive information provided, we will not be publishing further details from the evidence received.

Other comments

Six other responses were received by the FSA raising technical or other queries related to the call for evidence and/or the next steps following the call for evidence. As the responses did not provide any evidence towards the call for evidence they are not captured within this report.

Next steps

The evidence that was received will be reviewed and presented to the appropriate independent scientific advisory committee/s (COT and the Joint Expert Group for Food Contact Materials (FCMJEG)).

If the committee/s conclude that the evidence threshold has been met, a risk assessment may then be conducted.

List of respondents

1. Bastic Ltd
2. Emilie O’Connor HomeStores
3. City Look Imports Ltd