Non-food legislation – September 2026

Hazardous substances – Rules and regulations
EU: ECHA reports that Delegated regulation (EU) 2026/1278 has been published, adding 34 chemicals to PIC Regulation (EU) No 649/2012 (Prior Informed Consent). Under PIC, the EU has to provide export notifications to the national authorities. They contain information on where chemicals listed under PIC are exported to, for what uses, and give information on their hazardous properties. This includes how to safely store, transport, use and dispose of them.
ECHA has updated the EU Chemicals Legislation Finder EUCLEF. EUCLEF gives you an overview of the EU legislation on chemicals. SGS reports that the WTO has received a notification proposing amendments to the CLP Regulation.
US: California: Keller and Heckman reports that OEHHA has unveiled proposed revisions to Proposition 65. Prop 65 is a right-to-know law that requires individuals to receive a clear and reasonable warning before being exposed to certain chemicals.

Medicine and medical devices
CEN-CENELEC has published an article on symbols for medical devices. Medical device labels contain a remarkable amount of information in a very limited space. To help ensure that critical information can be understood regardless of language or geography, manufacturers rely on internationally recognised graphical symbols to replace text that requires translation. One of the global standards supporting this is EN ISO 15223-1 ‘Medical devices — Symbols to be used with information to be supplied by the manufacturer — Part 1: General requirements‘. The article discusses the 2025 amendment that changes the authorised representative symbol among other things.
UK: The government has published additional guidance for submitting changes to labels and patient information leaflets as a self-certification.
US: The FDA has published a draft guidance entitled “Container Closure Systems for Human Drugs and Biological Products.”

NL: Requirements for neutral packaging for cigars and e-cigarettes
On 14 July 2026, legislation (in Dutch) was published setting out the requirements for neutral packaging for cigars and e-cigarettes. Rules on standard packaging for cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco have already been in force since 1 October 2020.
The government has also sent draft legislation to the EC imposing additional requirements on refill containers for e-cigarettes with and without nicotine. The Administrative Court of Appeal for Trade and Industry (CBb) ruled that a cartridge in which refill liquid for e-cigarettes is sold (a refill container) cannot be classified as the packaging for that product but should be classified as the product itself. This means that the packaging requirements do not apply to refill packs which makes this legislation necessary.

Exposure to (micro)plastics
Scientists from the Minderoo Foundation and Boston College have updated PlasticHealthAware, a database that maps studies on plastic chemical exposure and human health impacts. The update was announced in an article (346 kB) published in Annals of Global Health.
A study from the University of Oklahoma demonstrates that polyethylene (PE) microplastics are particularly harmful to the liver under high-fat dietary conditions. The study (4.08 MB) is published in Science Advances.
 

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