Paper & Plastic Packaging Products & Materials Data Provider · Head-to-head
FDA Food Contact Notification (FCN) Inventory vs Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution
Which paper & plastic packaging products & materials data provider data fits your job: FDA Food Contact Notification Inventory, or Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
FDA Food Contact Notification (FCN) Inventory
Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution
Where the fields line up
No shared field names. These two answer different questions.
| Field | FDA Food Contact Notification Inventory | Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution |
|---|---|---|
FCN No. | documented | not in this set |
Food Contact Substance | documented | not in this set |
Manufacturer/Supplier | documented | not in this set |
Notifier | documented | not in this set |
Intended Use | documented | not in this set |
Limitations/Specifications | documented | not in this set |
Effective Date | documented | not in this set |
NEPA Submission | documented | not in this set |
FDA Decision for NEPA | documented | not in this set |
FCS REPLACED BY | documented | not in this set |
Entity | not in this set | Country, region or world aggregate name the row describes (e.g. Afghanistan, Africa (UN M49), World). |
Code | not in this set | ISO-style country code used by Our World in Data; left blank for regions and aggregates, with the world row answering to OWID_WRL. |
Coverage, side by side
| FDA Food Contact Notification Inventory | Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution | |
|---|---|---|
| Geographic | United States, federal regulatory scope | Global - countries, UN regions and world aggregates |
| Temporal | Clearances effective March 2000 to present; snapshot current to July 2026 | Production 1950-2019; waste generation to 2020; waste trade through 2024 |
| Granularity | One record per notification (substance + manufacturer + intended use) | Country-year observation per chart |
What each contains
They tie on 1 attribute. Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| FDA Food Contact Notification Inventory | Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | U.S. Food and Drug Administration | Our World in Data |
| Subject lens | Register of effective food contact notifications: substance, holder, intended use, limitations | Curated global indicators: production, waste generation, ocean leakage, waste trade |
| Geography | United States, federal regulatory scope | Global - countries, UN regions and world aggregates |
| Temporal reach | Clearances effective March 2000 to present; snapshot current to July 2026 | Production 1950-2019; waste generation to 2020; waste trade through 2024 |
| Granularity | One record per notification (substance + manufacturer + intended use) | Country-year observation per chart |
| Scale | 1,760 effective notifications | About 8 flagship chart series |
| Documented fields | 12 documented fields | 4 documented fields |
| Definition confidence | Verified - a bar 85.7 percent of cataloged datasets meet | Verified against live chart output |
| Formats delivered | Structured table plus bulk export | Chart-level CSV and JSON extracts |
| Rubric rating | 9 out of 10 | 9 out of 10 |
| Best for | Whether a substance may legally touch food, and who may sell it | How much plastic the world makes, wastes and leaks |
Or take both in one feed
They stack as rulebook plus backdrop. The FCN inventory decides what a packaging component may lawfully contain and who may lawfully supply it; the OWID series size the environmental story that choice gets told against. A brand team clears a new paper-coating formulation through the register, then quotes the waste-generation and leakage series in the sustainability disclosure accompanying launch. An investor screens converters by their appearance as manufacturers or notifiers in the inventory, then weights those exposures by mismanagement rates in their sourcing geographies.
Join discipline, not luck: the FDA record knows companies and substances but carries no tonnages and stops at the US border; the OWID record knows countries and years but cannot name a single cleared additive. Map substance families onto application categories once, keep company names separate from country entities, and the two views reconcile cleanly. Datadory delivers both records already reconciled to the same industry slice - sample the pair and keep whichever answers faster. Or take both in one feed.
API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Fair questions
Is FDA Food Contact Notification (FCN) Inventory better than Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution?
Different jobs. The FCN Inventory is a legal register: 1,760 effective notifications naming each substance, the manufacturer who may rely on it and the use limits, back to March 2000. Our World in Data - Plastic Pollution is a statistical atlas of production, waste and ocean leakage by country-year. Permission favors FDA; magnitude favors OWID.
Which dataset covers more geography?
Our World in Data, decisively. Its charts publish country-year rows spanning individual countries, UN regions and world aggregates worldwide. The FCN Inventory is a United States register by construction, since FDA notifications cover the US market - though the manufacturers and suppliers named in it are frequently global chemical and packaging companies, giving it an indirect international footprint.
Which goes back further in time?
Our World in Data on raw span: production series begin in 1950, seventy-six years of history. The FCN Inventory opens in March 2000, when FCN No. 1 took effect, and runs continuously to the current snapshot. On resolution the ranking flips: the FDA stamps an exact effective date on every clearance, while the OWID series report annual observations.
Do the two datasets measure the same thing about plastics?
No, and conflating them distorts analysis. The FCN Inventory records legal permissions - which substance, whose clearance, under what limits - and carries no tonnages. Our World in Data records quantities - tonnes produced, wasted, leaked and traded. A cleared substance says nothing about volumes in market; a rising production curve says nothing about which additives remain permitted.
Whose field definitions are better documented?
Both sides carry verified field-definition confidence captured against the live records rather than inferred - a standard only 85.7 percent of the 1,744 cataloged datasets meet. The difference is depth, not reliability: the FDA dictionary documents twelve fields including statutory nuances, while the OWID dictionary documents four generic columns whose meaning shifts with each chart series.
Which should a packaging compliance manager sample first?
Sample both, pick by fit. For the daily question - may we use this additive, does our supplier hold the effective notification, what are the use limits - start with the FCN Inventory. For annual reporting, sustainability disclosures and portfolio exposure, start with the OWID plastic-pollution series. Teams owning both questions usually keep both in rotation.