Bhubaneswar: How often have you been served food wrapped in a newspaper by the roadside vendor? Everytime — would be the common refrain.
But the unhygienic practice which poses a health risk is set to end soon as The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) is coming out with a new set of food packaging regulation, prohibiting the use of newspapers.
According to a report in The Hindustan Times, the regulations are in the process of being notified and come into effect from July 1, 2019.
Advisories have also been issued to the commissioner of food safety of all states to adopt measures restricting use of newspapers for packing, serving and storing of food items.
“Indians are being slowly poisoned due to newspapers being widely used as food packaging material by small hotels, vendors and also in homes in lieu of absorbent paper,” the regulator said.
Printing ink, usually used for printing newspapers, may contain bioactive materials, harmful colours, pigments, binders, additives, preservatives, chemical contaminants and even pathogenic microorganisms that may pose potential risk to human health, according to the FSSAI advisory.
Newspapers and even paper or cardboard boxes made of recycled paper may be contaminated with metallic contaminants, mineral oils and harmful chemicals like phthalates which can cause digestive problems and also lead to severe toxicity, it added.
While the advisory has remained silent about the penal provisions, it remained unclear if the regulations would make any specific reference on this, the lack of which could compromise with the level of compliance.
The development comes against the backdrop of the Odisha Govenment putting a ban on use of plastic from October 2 this year. According to a State Government communication, “No person can sell, trade, manufacture, import, store, carry, transport, use or distribute polythene and single-use plastic in the cities of Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Sambalpur, Berhampur and Puri.
Vendors are also not allowed to use polythene sheets of less than 50 micron thickness for storing, transporting, dispensing or packaging of any article or commodity or food items, consumables, packaging of milk and milk products and edible oil in sealed manner.
