A wide variety of plastics are used in food-contact applications and it is important that such plastics do not affect the food with which they come into contact. The objective of food packaging legislation is to protect the consumer by controlling the contamination of food by chemicals transferred from the packaging. This report provides a clearly written summary of the current legislation surrounding the use of plastics in contact with food. It discusses the plastics used in food packaging, their characteristics and applications. This review is accompanied by around 400 abstracts from papers and books in the Polymer Library.