European Association of Plastics

As already highlighted in the previous section, the associations representing the food contact materials and articles industries have been requested by the Commission to develop guidelines that would help the industry to harmonise the procedures adopted to achieve the objective set forth by Article 17 of Regulation 1935/2004/EC. These Guidelines have been prepared by a team representing virtually all the food contact materials industries the team was led by EuPC, the European Association of Plastics Converters (see Fig. 4.1). The Guidelines are published in the form of a Code of Practice. This Code... 

E/P ethylene / propylene EUPC European Association of Plastics Con-... 

Plastics rely on a feedstock used for energy production, but at the same time they need less of it per ton of product than other materials. The European Association of Plastic Manufacturers (APME) in Brussel has made a big effort over the last decade to develop a life-cycle analysis approach for an environmental positioning of all major plastic materials [1]. Meanwhile, the data for most polymers for resource demand and major emissions have been evaluated and published based on the average data of all European production sites. 

In summary, the LCA studies show that, assuming current technological and energy use practices, PLA exhibits comparable nonrenewable energy use and greenhouse gas emissions to PE and PET [27, 38]. The life cycle environmental impacts of petro-polymers are often taken from the European Association of Plastics Manufacturers (APME). The APME has an extensive database of LCl data for numerous polymers, including PE, PET, PP, and PS. 

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