Phtalates dans les emballages : Le Nutella pourrait vous rendre stérile

J’avoue être un amateur invétéré de Nutella, j’en mange tous les jours. Mais cette nouvelle a de quoi inquiéter. Mais qu’attend donc Ferrero pour changer son emballage?

Dans un reportage diffusé, ce mardi, sur Arte, on apprend que le Nutella contient du PEHP, le phtalate le plus dangereux. La substance migre, à chaque fois, de l'emballage dans le produit, affirme dans ce documentaire le Dr Marike Kolossa-Gehring, toxicologue à l'Office fédéral allemand de l'environnement, responsable d'une étude sur le sujet.Lors de ces analyses, une forte concentration de DEHP, le phtalate considéré comme le plus dangereux, a été détecté dans les tartines de Nutella.

Une présence confirmée par le producteur même de cette pâte à tartiner, mais en "quantité inoffensive", affirme Ferrero. Il faudrait, selon le groupe italien, manger des quantités énormes de Nutella pour que des risques de stérilité apparaissent.

Les experts sont unanimes : les phtalates agissent comme un leurre hormonal et provoquent principalement des dérèglements hormonaux. La stérilité chez les hommes en est un exemple (il y a de plus en plus de cas en Europe). Ce "poison" agit même avant la naissance, chez la femme enceinte, nous dit-on.

En 2008, des chercheurs de l’Inserm ont ainsi démontré expérimentalement, en reproduisant in vitro le développement d’un testicule, que les phtalates étaient «délétères pour la mise en place du potentiel reproducteur masculin dans l’espèce humaine». Dans les pays industrialisés, on estime actuellement qu’un homme produit deux fois moins de spermatozoïdes que son grand-père n’en produisait au même âge.

La législation européenne interdit l’utilisation des phtalates dans les jouets depuis janvier 2007, à la suite de leur classification comme «toxiques pour la reproduction» par la Commission européenne. En France, la députée UMP Valérie Boyer a déposé début juillet une proposition de loi visant à interdire les phtalates à l’hôpital: les dispositifs médicaux à destination des femmes enceintes, des prématurés, des nourrissons et des enfants pourraient être débarrassés de ces produits chimiques.

Une autre étude menée par l'Office fédéral de l'environnement montre également le danger que cela représente chez les jeunes enfants. Sur 600 enfants examinés, 100% d'entre eux présentaient des traces de phtalates dont cinq importants. Chez 20% d'entre eux, cette présence était en "quantité critique", autrement dit toxique.

Notons que le Nutella n'est pas le seul produit dans lequel on retrouve ces phtalates, on en retrouve dans certains paquets de bonbons, dans les bouteilles de coca-cola et même dans certains laits bios. Mais ce sont aussi et surtout les produits venant d'Asie qui sont pointés du doigt.

Sources: RTBF - 20 minutes

L'emballage qui tue : BPA, phtalates…des poisons potentiels

Un excellent reportage D'Inge Altemeier et Reinhard Hornung présenté hier sur Arte.

Emballage qui tue 1sur2

Emballage qui tue 2sur2

Global Corrugated Board Market to See 5% Growth to 2015

The global corrugated board packaging market is forecast to grow to 98 million tonnes in 2015, a new study by Pira International reveals. According to the study, the sector is to grow by a CAGR of nearly 5% between 2010 and 2015, with the highest expansion rates forecast in Brasil, Russia, India, China (the BRIC countries) and Poland.

 

Actual consumption of corrugated board was 77 million tonnes in 2009, with an exconverter value of almost $82 billion. Asia was 44% of total corrugated board production, China was almost 25% and the US was 20%. Pira expects the overall market to rise 1.2% in 2010 to 78 million tonnes. For the period to 2015 the outlook is more positive with a forecast CAGR of 4.7%, taking the market to 98 million tonnes in 2015.

 

Pira expects the growth rate to vary by country. "Over the short term, we forecast that developed markets will show slight declines in consumption. At the same time we believe that India, China, Russia, Poland and Brazil offer the most compelling growth prospects in the five years to come", says Adam Page, Head of Editorial at Pira.

 

More than 60% of corrugated board is used to package non-food products. The largest single end-use sector is the electrical goods market. Processed food is 25% of the total demand and all food is just under 40%. Pira expects the strongest prospects will be found in personal and household care products, glassware, electrical goods and chemicals. Processed food will be 25% of incremental volume, over 5 million tonnes of additional demand between 2010 and 2015. In food markets, the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and China - offer the most exciting growth prospects, along with Poland and Brazil; forecast incremental demand for 2010-15 is 7 million tonnes and China will take 4 million tonnes.

 

The key drivers to affect the corrugated board industry in 2010-2015 include:

• The economic situation: countries with faster growing economies will also see more growth in their corrugated board markets.
• The changing characteristics of the consumer market, e.g. the growing demand for convenience foods and fast foods, which require special types of packaging.
• The development of online shopping around the world, which will stimulate demand for simple packaging made of corrugated board.
• The pressure from the market on product manufacturers to use environmentally friendly packaging, resulting in, among others, the invention of new corrugated board coatings.
• The trend of lightweighting, which will drive down market volume. 

Wal-Mart RFID tags: between economical benefits and privacy concerns

After sustainability, Wal-Mart addresses traceability by adopting RFID tags.

Starting next month, the retailer will place removable "smart tags" on individual garments that can be read by a hand-held scanner. Wal-Mart workers will be able to quickly learn, for instance, which size of Wrangler jeans is missing, with the aim of ensuring shelves are optimally stocked and inventory tightly watched. If successful, the radio-frequency ID tags will be rolled out on other products at Wal-Mart's more than 3,750 U.S. stores.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) offers a number of potential benefits: traceability, inventory management, labour saving costs, security and promotion of quality and safety. However this technology raises privacy concerns.

Wal-Mart is demanding that suppliers add the tags to removable labels or packaging instead of embedding them in clothes, to minimize fears that they could be used to track people's movements. It also is posting signs informing customers about the tags.

I share with you the prescient story published in Page One of the Wall Street Journal and the Opinion of Philip Yam, chief news editor of Scientific American.
---

Benzophenone from packaging taints Italian couscous

German safety authorities have seized tonnes of couscous from Italy that were contaminated after the chemical benzophenone leached from the packaging.

Higher than permitted levels of the chemical were detected in 15,620 cartons of the foodstuff, the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL) told FoodProductionDaily.com. Some 7.8 tonnes of the product were immediately withdrawn by retailers and wholesalers after the problem was discovered by official inspections.

On July 13, Germany notified the Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) that levels of the chemical reaching 1559 µg/mg had been detected in the couscous imported from Italy,

Concern

Benzophenone and 4-methylbenzophenone (4-MBP) are used in food packaging as initiators for printing inks cured by UV radiation. Due to their volatility they can migrate through the packaging to the food if there is no functional barrier, said the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA).

The substances were a cause of Europe-wide concern last year after Germany and Belgium reported the chemicals had leached into breakfast cereals. In May 2009, EFSA concluded that for adults the estimated exposure from the chemicals in the cereal was unlikely to be a health hazard but that this could not be ruled out for children.

In the wake of the 2009 alert both the European Printing Ink Association and the European Carton Board Manufacturers recommended to their members that printing inks containing 4-MBP and BP were not suitable for printing of food packaging unless a functional barrier is present that blocks the transfer into food also via the gasphase.

The European Commission’s Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health recommended that food contact materials printed with inks containing benzophenone or 4-MBP should not be brought in contact with foods unless the company could verify the migration into food was below 0.6 mg per kg food.

Source

A lire : Sécurité alimentaire : Les composants de l’encre sous surveillance

Vous pouvez consulter ici le dossier sur la migration des composants des encres vers les aliments.

Track-and-trace Technology for Fresh Produce

The last year consumers have been facing large produce safety recall incidents (salmonella and E.coli).

Tomatoes were said to be the culprit, were pointed at, and took the blame, although they (probably) never made anyone sick. And while consumers stayed away from potentially ‘killer tomatoes’, the industry lost a lot of money. Panic leapt from one produce category to another with every new announcement, as neither the FDA nor the industry were able to come up with the source of the disaster.

But tell me, what exactly was the problem? Still, there is no answer, but even without the answer, what is this dreadful debacle teaching us?

In spite of the millions of dollars growers and processors have invested in state-of-the-art clean facilities and HACCP practices – consumers are facing recalls, and left in the dark in terms of information. Which is the brand of tomatoes that can be trusted to be safe? Where is the information that tells consumers from where the produce is originated. Brand identity with additional product information would be a good thing.

This leads to brand-protection technologies.

Read more...

L'emballage qui tue

La semaine prochaine Arte diffusera le documentaire : L’Emballage qui tue. Un rendez-vous à ne pas manquer.

Face à la hausse du nombre de substances toxiques dans les aliments, scientifiques et consommateurs donnent l'alerte.

À l'heure où les produits "longue conservation" sont de plus en plus prisés, les clients ne soupçonnent pas l'existence de substances dangereuses dans les emballages hermétiques et dans les aliments avec lesquels ils sont en contact. C'est le cas du Bisphénol A, que l'on trouve dans les contenants en plastique rigide et qui peut provoquer des maladies cardiaques ou affaiblir le système immunitaire. Même risque avec les phtalates utilisés pour plastifier les matériaux servant au conditionnement. Agissant comme des hormones, ils peuvent entraîner la stérilité chez les hommes. Nombre de produits figurent sur la liste des substances interdites par l'Union européenne mais comme celle-ci importe massivement des produits venus d'Asie, où les réglementations ne sont guère restrictives...

Plastic packaging: threats and eco-friendly alternatives

Plastic Packaging (PE and PP) : shortages and rising prices

The British Plastics Federation has joined European colleagues to warn of the threat to the sector of raw material shortages and rising prices.

BPF director general Peter Davis said that while this situation was affecting the entire sector, packaging manufacturers were feeling it most due to the availability of polyethylene and polypropylene.

HDPE price increase

In the 12 months to May, the euro price of high-density polyethylene for blow-moulding rose by more than 30%, the BPF said.

Polypropylene rose by 50% for the same period.

The BPF said the situation was due to the faster than expected economic recovery and the surge in Chinese demand in particular.

Reduced European reduction

European plastics production is also set to reduce – cracker capacity in the EU is forecast to fall by 26% in the next five years. The trend is towards production in the Middle and Far East.

Peter Davis said: "It is extremely important that the end customer buying and using plastic products, whether food retailers or car manufacturers, realise the very real pressures that our processing members are under and reflect this sympathetically in negotiations with suppliers.

Read more...

Paper or Plastic?

Conscientious consumers going about their busy days eating, working, shopping and cooking are faced with many little decisions that can have a cumulative impact on the environment or their health.

We like to believe we're making the best choices, but we often don't have the resources or time to really check it out.

The Tribune recently compiled a list of consumer dilemmas from readers and staff, then consulted the experts, crunched the numbers and considered different angles to come up with some answers.

Read more…

Purac starts project to produce lactic acid from papermaking waste streams

Purac has signed a contract to participate in a consortium that will develop a process to produce feedstock from cellulosic waste derived from the pulp and paper industry. This feedstock is expected to be usable for production of lactic acid. The other partners in the program are Crown Van Gelder N.V., a paper producing company, and Bumaga B.V., a development center in the paper and board industry. The project is part of the Dutch Biorefinery program and partially funded by the Dutch Ministries of Economic Affairs and Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality.

Read more…

Echo-Responsable: Propager la voi(x)e de l'éco-responsabilité

Nouveau venu dans la blogosphère au Québec : Echo-responsable. C’est un blog crée par une doctorante de l’université Laval. Il a pour objet de discuter des enjeux de l’éco-responsabilité, de vous présenter l’intérêt des démarches éco-responsables pour les entreprises, les collectivités et les municipalités.

« A l’image de l’écho qui se propage, ce blog se propose de contribuer à sa mesure à la diffusion de l’éco-responsabilité, un concept prometteur aux applications très concrètes ouvrant la voie vers une société plus durable», mentionne Aurélie Le Gars sur la page d’accueil de son blog.

Bienvenue Aurélie et longue vie à ton blog.

Compound in Kellogg cereal packaging identified: hydrocarbon

When Kellogg Co. pulled about 28 million cereal boxes from store shelves last month, the company said only that an "off-flavor and smell" coming from the packaging could cause nausea and diarrhea. But the culprit behind the recall is a class of chemicals now making news in the Gulf of Mexico: hydrocarbons, a byproduct of oil.

“Kellogg Company has concluded its investigation into the off smells present in the package liners in some of its cereals,” said company spokeswoman Adaire Putnam. “Working with external experts in medicine, toxicology, public health, chemistry and food safety, we identified elevated levels of hydrocarbons, including methyl naphthalene, normally found in the paraffin wax and film in the liners.”

This specific wax is commonly used as a protective coating for foods including cheese, raw fruits and vegetables, and are approved by the FDA, she said.

However, the company did not supply information relating to the exact levels of the chemical that were responsible for sickening a number of consumers – only saying they were not present in harmful levels.

“We have verified that the elevated levels of hydrocarbons are not present at harmful levels,” added Putnam. “We are working with our supplier to ensure that this situation does not happen again.”

Read more