Japan Solicits Public Feedback on Food Contact Materials Positive Lists

On Aug 9, 2019, Japan Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) released official consultation drafts of positive lists of additives and polymers used in food contact materials.^[1]Any comments should be submitted on the e-government website prior to Sep. 7, 2019. Details are:

According to Chapter 3 of Specifications and Standards for Foods, Food Additives, etc. food contact materials circulated in Japan Market shall comply with the following criteria:

The raw materials for synthetic resins shall be those listed in Appended Table 1.
Substances used for coloring shall be colorants specified or colorants processed so that they will not be eluted or leech into food.
Base polymers listed in the list of polymers in Appended Table 1 (2) shall be produced by polymerizing or cross-linking prepolymers on appropriate base materials.
More than 98 wt% of the components of a base polymer shall be constituted with the polymers in Appended Table 1 (1) or (2), and the remaining components shall be copolymers of monomers listed in Appended Table 1 (3).

Positive lists of polymers	Base polymers of plastics	Appendix 1 (1)[2]
	Base polymers of coatings etc.	Appendix 1 (2)[3]
	Minor monomers can used for polymerization of base polymers	Appendix 1 (3)[4]
Positive list of additives	Food contact additives, coating agents etc.	Appendix 2[5]

In Jun. 2018, Japan introduced the positive list system for the first time in the revised Food Sanitation Act^[6]. Currently Japan implements a negative list to regulate use of chemicals/materials in FCM. This practice deviates from global best practices and often leads to a situation in which materials and products banned in one country can be sold in Japan.^[7]

The positives lists are now undergoing primary consultation and will be submitted to WTO for secondary consultation before the final version officially comes out.