A grocery sector lobbyist is welcoming a government backdown on packaging regulations designed to protect young children against household cleansers and laundry powders.Food and Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich, a former National Party MP,
A grocery sector lobbyist is welcoming a government backdown on packaging regulations designed to protect young children against household cleansers and laundry powders.
Food and Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich, a former National Party MP, said the government decision not to require changes to packaging and labelling rules for laundry powder and cleaning products "will save the grocery sector many millions of dollars."
Changes to hazardous substances rules in 2006 required companies selling potentially dangerous household chemicals to provide child-resistant packaging, but allowed exemptions if they complied with relevant requirements in the United States, European Union or Australia.
But those exemptions were due to expire at the end of this year, a deadline which triggered significant lobbying by the sector, including Mrs Rich's claim to Environment Minister Nick Smith that "a tsunami of compliance costs would have been unleashed upon the grocery sector."
"Expiry of certain provisions overseen by Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) would have forced companies to shift from using environmentally-friendly cardboard packaging to plastic bottles in order to meet regulatory requirements," she said.
"This would have sent 30 million extra plastic bottles to landfills, increased compliance costs, and wrecked domestic powder production."
She said the changes would also have stopped manufacturers providing a handy plastic scoop and selling refills for trigger nozzle packs: the cleaning products sector would have been "thrown into turmoil" for no apparent safety gain to the public
An Australasian consumer, cosmetic, hygiene and speciality products lobby (Accord) earlier this year applied for some of the child-resistant packaging requirements under a number of group standards ranging from cleaning, dental and embalming products to surface coatings, fertilisers and fuel additives to be removed.
It also asked Erma to permanently continue the exemptions for products to be packaged to Australian, EU and US requirements.
In October 2006, Erma chief executive Rob Forlong congratulated the Safekids lobby which had successfully called for child-resistant packaging to be made mandatory: "Everyone wants to keep kids safe," he said.
Hazardous substances packaging regulations were changes not only for corrosive substances, but toxic substances which might be accessible to children.
Previously, child resistant packaging for domestic products was not legally mandatory and only advised by the Ministry of Health, but Mr Forlong said new group standards for hazardous substances passed in June 2006 would apply generally from July 2007.
"This applies not just to dishwashing powders, but also domestic products," he said.
