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Listen to this siteWednesday 18 June 2003
This research project aimed to investigate current usage of biodegradable packaging and identify chemicals that could migrate into food.
Study Duration : April 2002 to May 2004
Contractor : Central Science Laboratory
Nearly three million tonnes of plastic waste are produced in the UK each year, much of which is packaging. More than half of this is food packaging. Plastic waste is almost all non-degradable and over 80 percent of plastic waste products are put in landfills. The use of biodegradable polymers to make food packaging is beginning to be a practical reality. Commercial applications are in prospect, especially where the higher cost of biodegradable materials compared to synthetic polymers derived from petroleum can be off-set by a marketing advantage. 'Sustainable' and 'non-polluting' are attributes that are traded on. Also, there is increasing governmental pressure on manufacturers via eco-taxes to reduce the amount of non-degradable plastic packaging.
It would be quite easy to assume that if polymers are derived from natural sources and/or are biodegradable then they must automatically be safe. But this may not be the case. This project addressed the identification of possible migrants and any testing requirements for biodegradable polymers intended for food contact.
The project aims were realised via a group of 6 linked objectives, which were:
A large number of biodegradable polymers is available or under development. Nevertheless, the actual market for biodegradable polymers (excluding paper and board) for food contact applications is presently very limited indeed. The only biobased food-packaging materials used commercially on a major scale are based on cellulose. An estimate made in 2003 concluded that of the 2.7 million tonnes per annum polymer market in the UK, less than 0.1% of this production is from bio-based materials. It is not known what fraction of this very small percentage is used for food packaging applications. There is currently no system of coding (e.g. by logo) and no system has yet been setup in the UK to monitor sales and usage of biodegradable food packaging polymers.
A hydrolysable linkage is a feature common to most polymers that are biodegradable and most of the biodegradable polymers available are polyesters. The source materials can be synthetic (e.g. monomers derived from petroleum) or bio-based (i.e. monomers or polymers derived from crops or other living sources). The nature and the source of the material determine the possible chemical migrants. In general, biodegradable polymers built up by polymerisation of monomers (from either natural or synthetic sources) have a more defined composition than biodegradable polymers obtained as such from biopolymers. This is because the processes available to purify monomers (e.g. distillation, recrystallisation) are more efficient than the processes available to purify polymers (e.g. washing). Consequently, the composition and possible contaminants in biodegradable polymers should be limited where needed by compositional and/or migration limits, perhaps coupled with restrictions on source materials and the manufacturing processes used.
The methods of test for migration, using food simulants, are likely to be directly applicable to testing most biodegradable polymers. Since the methods of test are supposed to be directly related to the actual conditions of use in contact with food, and mimic these, then if a biodegradable polymer is suitable for a particular application in contact with food then a correctly specified test procedure should be applicable also. One caveat is that tests for overall migration may not be technically possible for humidity-sensitive materials.
The benefits of this project to the Food Standards Agency and to consumers, are two-fold:
Final report is availabl from the FSA Library and Information centre. To obtain a copy, please contact the Enquiry Desk, Dr Elsie Widdowson Library and Information Services, Food Standards Agency tel: 020 7276 8181/8182 or email: infocentre@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk
Contact
: For any enquiries concerning this research project, please contact the relevant programme contact or email:
science@foodstandards.gsi.gov.uk
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