On Thursday, the 23rd of January, the Latvian Saeima passed in the final reading amendments to the Law on the Reduction of Consumption of Products Containing Plastic, which provide for banning the use of polystyrene containers for food packaging.
The purpose of the amendments is to clarify the law in order to comply with the European Commission’s interpretation of the relevant directive.
In the European Union market, there are two types of foam polystyrene food containers – expanded foam polystyrene and extruded or pressed foam polystyrene.
The directive’s ban on expanded polystyrene containers applies to all types of expanded polystyrene materials manufactured according to the polystyrene expansion technology, including those that have undergone other processing steps, such as pressing, or extrusion, for additional expansion.
At the same time, the ban does not apply to polystyrene material that was only pressed or extruded but did not undergo the expansion process.
Amendments to the law will prevent the situation on the market that containers made of expanded polystyrene is replaced by foam polystyrene produced by alternative technology – which is both inflated and extruded at the same time.