Programme on the recyclability of food-packaging materials with respect to food safety considerations: polyethylene terephthalate (PET), paper and board, and plastics covered by functional barriers

Stimulated by new ecology-driven European and national regulations, new routes of recycling waste appear on the market. Since food packages represent a large percentage of the plastics consumption and since they have a short lifetime, an important approach consists in making new packages from post-consumer used packages. On the other hand, food-packaging regulations in Europe require that packaging materials must be safe. Therefore, potential mass transfer (migration) of harmful recycling-related substances to the food must be excluded and test methods to ensure the safety-in-use of recycled materials for food packaging are needed. As a consequence of this situation, a European research project FAIR-CT98-4318, with the acronym 'Recyclability', was initiated. The project consists of three sections each focusing on a different class of recycled materials : polyethylene terephthalate (PET), paper and board, and plastics covered by functional barriers. The project consortium consists of 28 project members from 11 EU countries. In addition, the project is during its lifetime in discussion with the US Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) to consider also US FDA regulatory viewpoints and to aim, as a consequence, to harmonizable conclusions and recommendations. The paper introduces the project and presents an overview of the project work progress.