The Member State Committee (MSC) of the EU, acting on a proposal made by France, has unanimously voted to add bisphenol A (BPA), the chemical used to produce the engineering plastic polycarbonate and epoxy resin can liners, to the list of substances of very high concern (SVCH) under the EU’s REACH chemicals legislation.

ECHA, the agency that administrates the EU’s REACH chemicals legislation, said it will update the current entry for BPA by the end of this month.

BPA is already on the candidate list proposed by ECHA in January of this year, in the category “toxic for reproduction.” At its meeting last week, MSC agreed on its additional identification as an SVHC because of its endocrine disrupting properties, which it said cause probable serious effects to human health and give rise to an equivalent level of concern to carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic to reproduction (CMRs category 1A or 1B) substances.

The Committee also agreed to identify the substance perfluorohexane-1-sulphonic acid and its salts (PFHxS), proposed by Sweden, as an SVHC due to its very persistent and very bioaccumulative (vPvB) properties.

Almost exactly a year ago, the European Commission asked ECHA and the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) to study BPA, and the European Parliament adopted a resolution demanding immediate action on endocrine disruptors. The plastics industry has consistently opposed restrictions on BPA and has received support from EFSA.

In January, the food safety watchdog said it saw no reason to reduce it recommended temporary tolerable daily intake (TDI) of the chemical but said it remained committed to re-evaluating it when a two-year study by the US National Toxicology Program is concluded later this year.