Additive Migration from Plastics into Foods - iSmithers-Rapra

Plastics are now being used on a large scale for the packaging of fatty and aqueous foodstuffs and beverages, both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. This is evident for all to see on the supermarket shelves, margarine is packed in polystyrene tubs, beer is packed in PVC bottles and meats and bacon in shrink-wrap film. Foods are also increasingly being shipped in bulk, in plastic containers. Additionally, there is the area of use of plastics utensils, containers and processing equipment in the home and during bulk preparation of food in producing factories, at home and in restaurants and canteens.

Thus it is likely that some transfer of polymer additives will occur - adventitious impurities such as monomers, oligomers, catalyst remnants and residual polymerisation solvents and low molecular weight polymer fractions - from the plastic into the packaged material with the consequent risk of a toxic hazard to the consumer. The actual hazard arising to the consumer from any extractable material is a function of two properties, namely, the intrinsic toxicity of the extracted material as evaluated in animal feeding trials (not dealt with in this book) and the amount of material extracted from the polymer which enters the packed commodity under service conditions, i.e., during packaging operations and during the shelf life of the packaged commodity at the time of the consumption.

This book covers all aspects of the migration of additives into food and gives detailed information on the analytical determination of the additives in various plastics. It will be of interest to those engaged in the implementation of packaging legislation, including management, analytical chemists and the manufacturers of foods, beverages, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics and also scientific and toxicologists in the packaging industry