Abstract

In the transition to a sustainable society, many new technologies and materials are developed. These often have disadvantages, examples thereof with a sustainability claim that entailed risks to public health are identified. Risk Governance should ideally address and deal with those potential risks. However, governance mechanisms to efficiently deal with these risks seem to be lacking. In this study, the Risk Governance in the lifecycle of three innovative bio-based plastic food contact materials (FCMs) were evaluated. Interviews were conducted with representatives of all stages in the lifecycle to identify risk management strategies to prevent or control public health risk. Experts were asked to share their views on the identified strategies. Nineteen different risk management strategies have been identified from the three case studies and compared with the principles of the International Risk Governance Council (IRGC) framework and showed that less than 50% corresponded to those of the IRGC framework. In addition, eighteen randomly sampled bio-based FCMs were chemically analysed to get insight in the presence of potentially hazardous substances. The presence of hazardous chemicals in the bio-based FCMs provide indications of potential chemical health risks. Apparently, there is no structural application of risk governance in the three bio-based FCM studied. Strategies are applied to manage public health risks, but these are usually implemented too limited to effectively manage the identified risks.

摘要

在向可持续社会过渡的过程中，开发了许多新技术和新材料。这些通常都有缺点，其中的一些例子具有可持续性声明，这些声明会给公共健康带来风险。理想情况下，风险治理应该解决和处理这些潜在风险。然而，似乎缺乏有效应对这些风险的治理机制。在这项研究中，评估了三种创新的生物基塑料食品接触材料 (FCM) 生命周期中的风险治理。与生命周期所有阶段的代表进行了访谈，以确定预防或控制公共卫生风险的风险管理策略。专家们被要求分享他们对确定的战略的看法。从三个案例研究中确定了 19 种不同的风险管理策略，并与国际风险治理委员会 (IRGC) 框架的原则进行了比较，结果表明不到 50% 与 IRGC 框架的原则相对应。此外，对十八个随机采样的生物基 FCM 进行了化学分析，以深入了解存在潜在危险物质的情况。生物基 FCM 中危险化学品的存在提供了潜在化学健康风险的迹象。显然，在研究的三种生物基 FCM 中没有风险治理的结构性应用。应用策略来管理公共卫生风险，但这些策略的实施通常过于有限，无法有效管理已识别的风险。