New EU legislation - imports of plastic kitchenware from China and Hong Kong applies from July 2011
5/24/2011
The European Commission, on 22 March 2011, published a new Commission Regulation setting out conditions for the importation of plastic kitchenware from China and Hong Kong.
See
Commission Regulation (EU) No 284/2011 The controls come into effect on the 1 July 2011. From this date imports will have to be accompanied by a declaration and analytical results to confirm that they are compliant with limits on the release of harmful chemicals.
The Food Standards Agency is responsible for issuing UK law which will set out the arrangements for the enforcement of the EC Regulation. This new law will be enforced by Port Health. Customs will have the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that controlled consignments are not released for free circulation without confirmation that the consignment is compliant.
Whilst the UK law has not yet been published, the main requirements from the EC Regulation are directly applicable, and establish the following requirements. For additional information, see
here