April 2018
April 2018
Food contact materials
EU notifies WTO of next amendments to plastic FCM regulation
The EU has notified the World Trade Organisation (WTO) of several amendments to Regulation (EU) No 10/2011 on plastic food contact materials (FCMs). The amendments authorise 2 new substances and changes the Specific Migration Limit for 2 other substances.
The notified amendments can be found here.
REACH
Full instructions on how to apply for a DCG solution now available
ECHA has published instructions on what evidence it expects from companies seeking a so-called Directors’ Contact Group (DCG) solution when registering substances for the last REACH deadline. If companies feel that a DCG solution applies to them, they can now contact ECHA and submit their evidence in one go. Applications can be submitted until 24 May 2018. If accepted as a DCG case, the company will receive instructions on how to indicate their situation in their registration dossier.
Member States to evaluate 21 substances in 2018
ECHA has adopted the updated Community rolling action plan (CoRAP), with 108 substances listed for evaluation in 2018-2020. Registrants of the listed substances are encouraged to co-ordinate their actions and contact the evaluating Member States.
BREF STS
The comments to the first draft of the revised BREF STS have been made available to the working group, and Afera is currently reviewing the feedback for the chapter on adhesive tapes. As a next step, Afera will align its input with the ESVOC BREF STS working group on the 23 April 2018 and provide the Commission its feedback after that.
Sustainability/recycling/waste legislation
European Paper Recycling Council moves forward on Ecodesign of printed paper products
An update has been made to the European Paper Recycling Council’s (EPRC) Assessment of Printed Product Recyclability. This Scorecard for the Removability of Adhesive Applications now includes an annex for applications where there is sufficient experience and confidence that they will deliver good results on removability – this following a presentation by Afera on the topic at the EPRC meeting in October last year.
Non-water-soluble or non-dispersible hot melt adhesives are now exempted from testing under certain conditions. If an adhesive application does not conform to with the conditions in this annex, no conclusion can be made about its removability.
The updated scorecard can be found here.
Progress on Circular Economy Package
The European Parliament's Environmental Committee has voted in favour of the Waste Package, which is expected to be a vital step towards building Europe's Circular Economy. In addition, the European Commission has finalised its proposal for a Circular Economy Monitoring Framework to track the EU’s progress against the ambitions and targets set out in the Circular Economy Package.
Amongst others, 10 indicators of progress towards the circular economy, divided over 4 themes have been included. Among others, recycling rates of various types of waste, generation of waste and trade in recyclable raw materials are included. The framework can be found here, while data on the identified metrics can be found here.