The UK’s approach to bisphenols in food packaging isn’t cutting the mustard

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical that has long been known to harm human and wildlife health by interfering with our sensitive endocrine system. Exposure to BPA is connected to extensive health impacts, including harmful effects on the immune system, chronic diseases such as breast and prostate cancer, and developmental disorders like ADHD and autism.

The EU has introduced a key measure to reduce citizens’ exposure to BPA and other similarly harmful bisphenols. Meanwhile, the UK is lagging behind, leaving its citizens more exposed than their neighbours across the channel.

What has the EU done to protect the health of its citizens?

In December 2024, the EU adopted a ban on using BPA and other hazardous bisphenols classified as carcinogenic, mutagenic (damaging to DNA), toxic to reproduction or endocrine disrupting from coming into contact with food or drink.

The move follows a vast reassessment of over 800 studies published since 2013  by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). They concluded that the health of Europeans in all age groups is at risk from BPA in their diets. BPA is used in plastic tableware, reusable water bottles, takeaway containers and in food and drink can linings. Diet is a a major source of exposure to the chemical, and the introduction of the ban is expected to decrease levels of BPA in the European population.

What is also significant about the EU’s new ban, is that it takes steps to tackle ‘regrettable substitution’. This is when one banned chemical is replaced with a similar chemical that is also problematic. When bisphenols other than BPA are identified as having the harmful properties mentioned above, they will automatically be banned in food contact materials rather than needing to undergo an assessment for the risk they pose for this use.

What are the UK’s plans on BPA and other bisphenols in food contact materials?

Last year, the UK’s scientific committee, the Committee on Toxicity, disagreed with EFSA’s assessment on BPA and published its own assessment of the level it considered safe for the UK population to be exposed to.  The Food Standards Agency have adopted the Committee’s advice that sets the assumed safe level 1000 times higher than the EU’s. The Food Standards Agency have said that next steps will ‘likely include updating current restrictions.’

Chloe Topping from CHEM Trust said:

‘People in the UK should benefit from the same level of protection as our European neighbours. We should not be eating and drinking from items that contain chemicals connected to such a frightening range of health impacts. Our government must take seriously the threat that BPA and other harmful bisphenols pose to our health and restrict their use in materials that come into contact with our food and drink.’

CHEM Trust is calling for the FSA to match the ban on BPA and other bisphenols in food contact materials and the EU’s assumed safe level of exposure to BPA. However, for the FSA to match the new FCM ban effectively, the UK Government will also need to match steps introduced in the EU in 2023 to better identify endocrine disrupting chemicals.

Read the letter we sent to the health minister responsible for the Food Standards Agency here.