The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) launched, on Friday 5 November, two six-week public consultations to re-evaluate the risks to public health from plasticisers such as phthalates, structurally similar substances and replacement substances potentially used as plasticisers in materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.
The first consultation concerns a draft scientific opinion on the identification and prioritisation of these plastic substances based on data provided by the European Commission, the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) and EU Member States.
Only substances authorised for food contact materials at EU or national level have been prioritised.
The order of priority is based on the date when the substances were most recently assessed as food contact materials: those assessed before 2001 are of high priority, those assessed between 2001 and 2011 are of medium priority and those assessed after 2011 are of low priority.
The second consultation is on a protocol for dietary exposure assessment of prioritised substances. This protocol defines the approach EFSA intends to use to collect and select data and to analyse and integrate the evidence for the exposure assessment.
Draft opinion: https://bit.ly/30e3JTE
Draft protocol: https://bit.ly/3CY3z0T (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)