![]() ![]() "Our markets might be slightly different, but in the grand scheme of things, food packaging is food packaging,” Woodbury said. While Woodbury said several other states have moved faster, she added that it made sense for Maine to piggyback on Washington's work on identifying safer alternatives. Usually on PFAS we are leading,” said Sarah Woodbury, who works on PFAS policy issues with the Portland-based organization Defend Our Health. "In this particular instance, we are a little bit in the middle of the pack. Lawmakers also made headlines two years ago when they passed a first-in-the-nation bill to ban PFAS in all products sold in the state by 2030.īut before that happens, Maine environmental regulators want to remove PFAS from food packaging. Maine was the first state to require PFAS testing of sludge and later banned re-purposing the waste as farm fertilizer. And in Maine, testing has revealed dangerously high levels of older, toxic versions of PFAS in dozens of farm fields where sludge was used as fertilizer as well as in nearby wells and water sources. But the long-lasting chemicals are showing up in water supplies across the country. Short for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, PFAS is a family of more than 10,000 chemicals that are widely used in consumer products as well as high-tech equipment and firefighting foam. And this is going to be an important part of that strategy." “So if we want to try to get it out of our waste stream and not have it continue to go into our environment, we have to do source reduction. "We've got it still coming into our waste stream and it's coming from things like PFAS in food packaging and PFAS in products,” Loyzim said in an interview last week. But she described the proposal as being part of Maine’s two-pronged approach to address both existing contamination and the PFAS still showing up in the waste stream. And earlier this month, the Maine Department of Environmental Protection released concept draft language for rules that would ban PFAS in nine types of food packaging.ĭEP Commissioner Melanie Loyzim said she hopes the Maine Board of Environmental Protection and the Legislature will approve the final rules next year. Two studies later, Washington began prohibiting some food containers in February. Rather than blaze a new trail, Maine lawmakers opted to rely on Washington’s planned analysis of whether there were safer, affordable alternatives available in the marketplace before banning containers made with PFAS. Maine was the second state - after Washington - to pass a law in 2019 aimed at removing PFAS from fast-food wrappers, pizza boxes, picnic plates, take-out containers and other single-use food packaging. But the same durable chemical bonds that make PFAS so useful in nonstick cookware, waterproof fabrics and food packaging also prevent the compounds from breaking down easily in the body and the environment, hence the nickname "forever chemicals.”Ī growing body of scientific studies have also linked some PFAS to health problems such as cancer, kidney disease, low birth weight and disruption of the endocrine system. Maine environmental regulators are moving forward with plans to ban the sale of food packaging made with PFAS, joining a small but growing number of states targeting a potential exposure pathway to the “forever chemicals.”įor years, many food packaging manufacturers - including some with factories in Maine - have used PFAS coatings to keep paper-based containers from turning into soggy, greasy messes. Environmental and health groups are pushing dozens of fast food companies, supermarket chains and other retail outlets to remove PFAS from their packaging. ![]() ![]() Facebook Email A Burger King Whopper in a wrapper, left, rests next to a McDonald's Big Mac in a container, in Walpole, Mass. ![]()
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