The California Safer Food Packaging Act of 2025, co-sponsored by BCPP, passed the Assembly floor vote last June and will restart in the Senate this year.
Building on previous BCPP legislative successes, like the 2021 California Safer Food Packaging & Cookware Act (AB 1200 – Ting), this law would ban bisphenols and phthalates in food and beverage packaging materials.
Such legislation is a crucial step toward eliminating toxic chemicals from our food system, a goal which a recent report from Systemiq describes as crucial, possible, and likely cost effective.
Removing Phthalates, Bisphenols, Pesticides, & PFAS from Food Supply Chains Makes Financial Sense
To reach this conclusion, researchers behind Systemiq’s Invisible Ingredients: Tackling Toxic Chemicals in the Food System, the most comprehensive global assessment to date on this topic, estimated the costs of using phthalates, bisphenols, pesticides, and PFAS in food supply chains. They found that these four groups of harmful chemicals negatively impact global health, economies, and ecosystems, imposing nearly $3 trillion a year in preventable costs via human disease, fertility loss, and environmental damage. The report also found that doing nothing about these preventable costs is clearly the most expensive option, and that already existing policies and technologies could reduce such harm by about 70%, delivering up to $1.9 trillion in annual global savings.
Add to that bans and phase-outs of the most harmful chemicals, greater testing and transparency for many others, and accelerated innovation to create safer food contact materials, and savings could be even higher.
The report’s positive outlook doesn’t stop there! When considering the viability of these new actions, researchers found that past regulatory action shows that when governments set clear rules, not only do industries adapt rapidly, but they often do so at lower costs than anticipated.
Regulatory and Civic Action is Essential to Change Food Industry Practices
Achieving this transition, they say, demands action from regulators, industry, and investors, as well as citizens and NGOs. They emphasize that, above all, clear, binding phaseout timelines are needed to provide certainty to industry, expedite cost declines through scale, and stimulate innovation.
Regulators across the globe are already acting: The herbicide paraquat is banned in 60 countries. France plans to block imports of foods that contain banned pesticide residues. Colorado is banning the use of neonicotinoid pesticides on seeds. California banned chlorpyrifos, and is now seeking to ban paraquat.
You Can Help by Supporting Food Safety & Chemical Regulation Legislation
BCPP supports these changes by advancing food safety laws and petitions, FDA litigation and lobbying, and supporting federal and state food packaging bills. Read more about our work and send your Senator a letter in support of the California Safer Food Packaging Act of 2025 (AB 1148 – Sharp-Collins).
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