Recycled plastics and paper

Food Toxicology 2(2+0)
Lesson 28 : Food packaging material – potential contaminants from food packaging material

Recycled plastics and paper

  • Relatively little work has been done to determine what chemical changes occur when plastic and paper materials are recycled.
  • Recycling of in-house scrap materials has been practiced by the packaging industry for many years. Such materials present no potential hazard because they have never been used as packaging.
  • However, the use of recycled packaging materials, other than metals and glass, after the consumer has used them is potentially a problem because of contamination from a variety of sources. Since there are no controls on the treatment procedures or the uses to which these materials have been put, there is no control over the type of contaminants which may be present.
  • It is inevitable that some recycled materials would not be acceptable for use in many food packaging applications.
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Last modified: Monday, 27 February 2012, 8:30 AM