Chemicals used in plastic materials and articles in contact with food (year 2)

Thursday 27 May 2004

Food survey information sheet 55/04

Key points

• This is the latest in a series of surveys testing for compliance with legislation on chemical migration from plastic materials and articles in contact with food. There are controls in British law to protect consumers from unsafe levels in food of the chemical building blocks (monomers) that are used to make plastics for contact with food. This information sheet reports the results of the second year of this survey. Year 1 was reported in Food Survey Information Sheet no. 43/03.
• A total of 200 samples were tested. Samples of the following were included in this survey: melamine-ware, and food packaged in either of two polyolefins (polyethylene and polypropylene) or in co-polymers containing vinyl acetate.
• Simulant exposed to 50 melamine-ware articles was analysed for melamine and formaldehyde (with hexamethylenetetramine expressed as formaldehyde).
• A total of 100 samples of foods packaged in polyolefins were analysed for five alkenes: (1-pentene, 4-methyl-1-pentene, 1-hexene, norbornene, 1-octene); 50 samples of food packaged in co-polymers containing vinyl acetate were tested for this vinyl ester.
• The five alkenes and vinyl acetate were not found in food, so legal limits for these were not exceeded. Formaldehyde and melamine migrated, in most cases, at levels well below the limits in law. Melamine migrated from 43 out of 50 samples at 0.051-0.90 milligrams/square decimetre [mg/dm²] and 0.96-3.8 mg/kilogram [kg] – well below legal limits (5.0 mg/dm² and 30 mg/kg). Melamine did not migrate from the other seven samples.
• Formaldehyde migrated from all 50 samples tested. Its migration was within legal limits for 45 samples (0.055-2.3 mg/dm² and 3.6-12 mg/kg, compared to legal limits of 2.5 mg/dm² and 15 mg/kg). In the other five samples, formaldehyde levels were above the legal maximum. The Food Standards Agency took immediate action, working with local enforcement authorities and the suppliers, so that the products were withdrawn from sale and recalled from people who had bought them. Related items in affected product ranges were also withdrawn.