How do you move forward, improve and grow while simultaneously defending against unfounded efforts by others to impede those very advancements? That was the nature of the presentations on the second day of SPI’s Flexible Vinyl Products 21st Compounding Conference, as they alternated between  discussions of cutting-edge research, the latest market information and new tools to improve products on one hand, and strategies to negotiate product de-selection initiatives on the other.

Bill Hall, who chairs the environmental law practice at Winston & Strawn, presented a range of measures to employ in order to discourage product de-selection, and reminded attendees of the famous phrase of his former basketball coach, the late great Jim Valvano: “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up.” Hall played basketball under Valvano at Bucknell Univesrsity, prior to Valvano winning the NCAA national championship as the coach of North Carolina State University in a highly memorable last-second upset victory in 1983.

Later in the day, members of the ACC Phthalate Ester Panel exposed several anti-phthalate studies and news reports as myths using a glaring spotlight of reality in the form of government  statistics and common sense conclusions drawn by a variety of independent experts. The panel members also provided a regulatory and legislative update as well as a report on recent media trends.

Bill Carroll spoke to attendees about a few things, including his work as a member of California’s Green Chemistry Initiative Science Advisory Panel. The Green Chemistry program is a highly complex, some might say “convoluted,” process to remove or reduce chemicals deemed hazardous from products sold in California. Carroll, vice president, industry issues for Occidental Chemical Corporation, an an adjunct professor of chemistry at Indiana University, also engaged conference attendees in a discussion about the future of the flexible vinyl industry, asking, “Where will we be in 10 years? Where do we go from here?” The ensuing conversation swung from the need for greater innovation, to the need to be less risk-averse when it comes to investing  financial resources in compelling opportunities, and the possibility of the federal government setting policies that make the United States a friendlier place to do manufacturuing business.

But in addition to sessions on how to deal with negative external challenges, attendees also heard from speakers who brought expertise to the table that would help them do their jobs better and improve their vinyl products. Jim Roberts of BYK-Gardner, for example, spoke about how to best measure color, gloss (the amount of light reflected off a surface), haze, clarity and other physical properties of vinyl and its products. This is particularly important in today’s manufacturing world where one part of a product may be made in the United States as others are being made at other plants around the world. When they come together, they need to be exactly alike. Luckily, as I learned, there are lab and production line tools like the “Micro-Gloss” and “Spectro-Guide.”

Toward the end of the day, industry lion and Lord of the Rings enthusiast Dean Finney, retired from Eastman Chemical Company and now almost set to retire from Rivendell Consultants, paraphrased the Tolkien character Aragorn in addressing his embattled flexible vinyl colleagues: “Success does not belong to one man but to all. Let us together rebuild this world that we may share in the days of peace.”

Congress has re-opened critical dialogue on food safety with consideration of the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 (H.R. 2749), which passed the House of Representatives on July 30, 2009. Furthermore, with the proposed Food Safety Modernization Act  (S. 510) pending in the Senate, there is mounting concern that some may seek to bring food packaging into the fold of proposed legislation. 

In view of food packaging’s tremendous technical complexity and pivotal role in ensuring food safety and security in the U.S. and around the world, it is essential that lawmakers reviewing the regulation of food packaging rely on the extensive technical expertise and commitment to sound science among professionals at domestic regulatory agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture,  trade associations like SPI and professional societies like the Institute of Food Technologists, the Society of Toxicology and the American Chemical Society.

Food packaging and its component substances have been regulated by FDA for more than 50 years, and in that time there has never been a documented adverse food safety event precipitated by a technical failure in food packaging.  Food packaging is carefully designed to be effective in preventing food spoilage and contamination while having limited transfer of its component substances to the food it contacts, and it is subject to an extensive premarket approval process at FDA that considers chemistry, toxicology, environmental impact and dietary exposure data as part of a detailed risk assessment. 

As threats to food security continually emerge through terrorism, drought and famine, food packaging plays a continually evolving role in helping to ensure a safe and abundant food supply that can be efficiently distributed to the world’s people. Think of the volumes of life-saving canned foods and bottled water that have been shipped to Haiti in the wake of the January 12th earthquake.

The availability of safe and effective food packaging and the innovation of improved food packaging should not be compromised by frameworks based on perceived versus scientifically documented risks.  Lawmakers should carefully consider available science to ensure that food-contact substances and packaging technologies that have protected our food for decades may continue to be used in the absence of scientifically credible toxicological threats to consumers.

I like to shop.  Frequently. Whether its grocery stores, clothing stores, shoe stores or department stores — I’m there!  And I am getting better and better at utilizing online stores.  I purchase things from all over the place. 

Our clothing and items like meat, fruits and vegetables have a label that provides us with an indication of where they were manufactured or grown. And shipping labels can provide some indication of where the product was shipped from. However, there is no similar detail regarding the packaging of our products.  For example, if you purchase a blanket packaged in a plastic pouch that is labeled ”Made in China” can you assume this applies to both the blanket and the package? 

As you might recall, ”country of origin“  became a big issue concerning toxins in toys and dog food a few years ago. Lately, its become a popular topic of conversation amongst people in the packaging world. Customers are regularly asking their suppliers to detail or even certify that certain toxic materials aren’t in their products… or their packaging! Particularly because one country’s environmental regulations may not be as stringent as others. 

 So, exactly where did the package that surrounds your product come from? Seems like a simple enough question, right?  Not exactly.  By the time consumers see a plastic package it has likely been through multiple hands, has something akin to a label and/or exterior printing on it and started out as a plastic resin somewhere in the world. Once you add a number of distributors and converters into the mix, calculating where exactly all of those pieces started can be a somewhat tricky and sticky process. 

Plastic resins are manufactured here in the United States, but that does not mean your plastic started out in Houston. It may have come from the Middle East or southwest Asia. Then it may get shipped here, but not necessarily.  Maybe that resin goes somewhere in Europe or South America and is turned into your primary package.  A label manufactured in Mexico or Canada might be affixed to the outside and printing done in ink from just about anywhere could be on that label. What you may get  in the end is a plastic package whose country of origin is unknown because its components came from multiple places. Putting a label on a package that details the country of origin may be a good idea, but then, will that be where the original resin was manufactured, or is that a detail of each little stop it makes along the way?

Being transparent and reducing our carbon footprint is a great idea. But sometimes in practice, at least for the time being, it is a little difficult.  Creating a chart of origin for components of a plastic package would require cooperation of the supply chain worldwide — and I don’t know that we’re quite that organized as a planet yet.

What does “eco-friendly” really mean?  Sure, I can derive from the word’s components that it refers to being ecologically responsive, environmentally responsible and good for the Earth. But what exactly is that? How do you make a determination in the face of relentless commercial marketing?  Advertising a product is a multi-million dollar business.  As consumers, we have been trained well by ad execs and marketing gurus to salivate every time someone rings a bell or, not unlike Pavlov’s dog, purchase products described with trendy words like “organic,” “natural” or even ”new and improved.”

Recently I was told by a customer service representative that his company was switching packaging in order to be more “eco-friendly.”  I wondered what that really means and contemplated all the different ways  a package might become more “eco-friendly.” Different material? Less material? Made from recycled content or ability to be recycled? Material produced on site or shipped from a closer location? Less energy used? Biodegradability? Carbon neutrality? There  are many, many factors that could be analyzed. 

While advertisers attempt to drive consumers toward an endless parade of  products, at least here in the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is very specific about the ways in which those products can be described as green or “eco-friendlyl.” The FTC’s Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (or “The Green Guides”) exist to offer a host of examples of how to label products correctly and what constitutes incorrect labels.  Just saying a product is sustainable, biodegradable or carbon neutral with the hopes of influencing purchases is not good enough, and the FTC holds companies to a higher standard. Consumers need to be educated on the facts as well.

I spend a lot of my time working with companies who are making advancements creating products that do have less of an impact on our environment.  These companies feel a sense of responsibility and duty when it comes to preserving the world we live in.  I would hope that we, as consumers, would look beyond the slick catch phrase added to our goods and ask for sound scientific proof to back these phrases up. The next time I am shopping for goods, I will be doing so with an eye out for the truth behind the marketing.

Yesterday, Representative  Mark Schauer (D-MI) announced $1 million in federal funding for the International Food Protection Training Institute in Battle Creek. According to the Congressman, if President Obama signs the bill into law,  the funding “will help strengthen the important work that is already underway at the Institute to make sure food inspectors have the necessary skills to keep our food supply safe.”

When it comes to food safety, skilled inspectors are important — but so are safeguarding tools such as irradiation and special protective packaging.

In the wake of deadly national outbreaks of salmonella, E. coli and listeria monocytogenes in a variety of foods, safety is high on the priority lists of federal and state legislative and regulatory bodies across the U.S.  There has been a renewed push for irradiation of food to eliminate pathogens and extend shelf life.  Food irradiation involves exposing food to a measured dose of ionizing radiation from gamma rays, electron beams or X-rays to destroy microorganisms and the illnesses they may induce.  FDA first deemed food irradiation safe in 1963, and since then the Agency has approved its use for sterilization of meat, poultry, spices, wheat and wheat powder, and fresh produce.   Irradiated foods can be recognized on grocery store shelves by the presence of the radura symbol.

An interesting challenge arises from the fact that foods are often packaged prior to irradiation to avoid recontamination.  Before a packaging material can be chosen to hold a food during irradiation, the effects of radiation on the stability of the material must be considered carefully.

In the case of plastic food packaging, for example, irradiation may cause either cross-linking (the joining of two polymer chains) or chain scission (the breaking of polymer chains).  If cross-linking occurs during irradiation, the migration of packaging materials into food is not likely to be increased. But if chain scission dominates during the reaction, then lower weight, mobile molecules form that may migrate into food.

Toxicity data is relatively sparse on radiolysis products that may migrate into food from irradiated packaging materials.  There have also been comparatively fewer studies done on the effects of irradiation on plastic  food packaging materials than there have been on irradiation of medical devices and pharmaceutical products.  Migration and toxicity data of this nature are often generated by industry in the process of seeking FDA clearance for new food packaging applications.  To date, however, there has been little economic incentive for companies to spend the $60,000 – $80,000 required for testing to prepare a food additive petition or food contact notification for a material to be cleared for use, often in very small quantities, in a specific application like irradiation with a correspondingly limited market.

Expanding the practice of food irradiation is a means of enhancing food safety. The challenge, however, is that there are relatively few food packaging materials approved by FDA for use in contact with food during the irradiation process.  Companies will likely need market incentives, tax credits or other special funding if they are to finance testing of food packaging materials for irradiation.