The role of the Scientific Committee for Food in evaluating plastics for packaging

One of the tasks of the Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) is to advise the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) on the safety-in-use of monomers, other starting substances and additives used in food packaging materials. This advice forms the basis of Community Directives for the regulation of food packaging materials by a system of positive lists of substances authorized for use. The SCF considers the available migration and toxicity data and classifies each substance into one of ten lists, reflecting whether or not there are adequate data and whether the data indicate the potential for adverse effects. This paper describes the SCF classification system and discusses the rationale behind the SCF approach to toxicity testing and evaluation of food packaging materials, with particular emphasis on the recent change which took place in 1990 when the Committee issued a new set of guidelines. These guidelines outlined a new tiered approach to toxicity testing, based on the principle that the greater the potential human exposure to a substance, the more toxicity data are required to make a sound health assessment.