What Is a Safety Evaluation for Recycled Plastics?
The journey of plastic from waste to reusable resource is a cornerstone of the circular economy. However, when recycled plastics are destined for sensitive applications as sensitive as food contact materials, cosmetic or health applications, a rigorous safety evaluation isn't just best practice – it's an absolute necessity. Protecting consumer health is paramount, and this involves a deep dive into the chemical and physical properties of recycled materials to ensure they meet stringent safety standards.
Why Is Safety Evaluation Crucial?
Recycled plastics can carry a legacy from their previous usages. This might include residues from previous contents, degradation products, or contaminants picked up during collection and reprocessing. Without a thorough safety evaluation, these substances could potentially migrate into food or beverages, posing health risks. At Applus+ Laboratories, we use ISO 17025 accredited testing methods, ensuring a high level of competence in our testing and calibration laboratories.
Addressing Non-Intentionally Added Substances (NIAS)
Non-intentionally added substances (NIAS), which are chemical compounds present in a material but have not been added intentionally for a technical reason during the production process, are a particular focus. NIAS can originate from various sources, including side reactions during polymerisation, degradation products, or contaminants. Identifying and assessing the risks associated with NIAS is a complex but essential part of ensuring the overall safety of recycled food contact materials.
What Is PFAS Analysis and Why Is It Vital?
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a large group of man-made chemicals that are very persistent in the environment and the human body.
- Detection and Quantification: Specialised analytical methods are required for the accurate detection and quantification of PFAS, often down to parts per billion (ppb) levels.
- Emerging PFAS Compounds: The landscape of PFAS is constantly evolving, so screening for emerging PFAS compounds is also important.
- Compliance: Ensuring adherence to the latest PFAS restrictions is a critical aspect of the safety assessment.
What Are SVHCs and Why Do They Matter?
Substances of Very High Concern (SVHCs) are chemicals that may have serious effects on human health or the environment, identified under the European REACH regulation.
- Detection Requirements: Analytical identification of SVHCs requires sophisticated methodologies like LC-MS/MS and GC-MS with detection capabilities at concentrations as low as 0.01%.
- Regulatory Updates: The ECHA Candidate List is regularly expanded, currently containing over 230 substances, making ongoing compliance monitoring essential.
- Supply Chain Obligations: When SVHCs exceed 0.1% w/w, manufacturers must provide information to recipients and consumers and submit notifications to the SCIP database.
Why Is Phthalate Testing Critical for Recycled Plastics?
Phthalates are plasticisers historically used in plastics that have raised concerns due to their potential endocrine-disrupting properties.
- Contamination Risk: Recycled plastics present a higher risk of phthalate contamination due to their varied and sometimes unknown origins.
- Comprehensive Analysis: Testing covers regulated phthalates including DEHP, DBP, BBP, DIBP, DNOP, DINP, and DIDP using sensitive GC-MS/MS methods.
- Regulatory Thresholds: Detection limits need to reach well below 0.005% to ensure compliance with EU Regulation 10/2011 for food contact materials and the more stringent EU 2018/2005 for childcare items and toys.
How Do We Perform Our Safety Evaluations?
We use a multi-faceted approach that is essential to thoroughly evaluate the safety of recycled plastics. This involves several critical testing and analysis stages:
Migration Testing
One of the primary concerns with food contact materials is the potential for chemicals to transfer, or migrate, from the packaging into the food itself.
- Overall Migration: This tests the total amount of all substances that can migrate from the plastic to a food simulant. It provides a general measure of the inertness of the material.
- Specific Migration: This focuses on particular substances of concern, measuring the amount of a specific known chemical (e.g., a monomer, additive, or contaminant) that transfers to food. Adherence to regulations like EU Regulation No 10/2011 (EN1186-1) is key here.
- Migration Modelling: Advanced computational models can predict migration levels under various conditions, helping to assess safety efficiently.
- Temperature-Dependent Migration Studies: Since temperature can significantly influence migration rates, studies are conducted to understand how packaging will behave under real-world conditions, from refrigeration to heating.
Identifying and Quantifying Harmful Substances
A crucial step is to understand the chemical makeup of the recycled polymer.
- Polymer Identification and Purity: Techniques like Pyro-GC MS (Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry) or Infra-Red spectroscopy are employed to determine the exact nature and purity of the recycled polymer.
- Other techniques such as TGA (thermogravimetric) or DSC (Differential scanning calorimetry) help in the characterisation and identification of material.
- Screening for Compounds: Comprehensive screening for semi-volatile, volatile, and non-volatile compounds is conducted. This helps to identify a broad range of potential migrants, including unexpected substances.
- Worst-Case Extraction: This involves using aggressive conditions to extract leachable substances, providing a conservative estimate of what could potentially migrate.
How Do We Tackle Substances of Concern?
Certain chemicals are known to pose specific health risks and are therefore scrutinised closely during safety evaluation:
- Heavy Metals and Inorganic Compounds: Elements like lead, cadmium, and mercury are toxic even at low levels.
- Phthalates: These are often used as plasticisers but some have been linked to endocrine disruption.
- Bisphenol A (BPA): Another compound with concerns about endocrine-disrupting properties, often found in polycarbonate plastics.
- Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs): These can affect indoor air quality and some may have direct health effects.
What Are the Benefits of Safety Evaluations?
Conducting thorough safety evaluations for recycled plastics, especially those intended for food contact materials, offers a multitude of crucial benefits:
- Protecting Consumer Health: This is the foremost benefit. Rigorous testing ensures that harmful substances do not migrate from packaging into food, safeguarding public health and preventing food-related illnesses.
- Ensuring Regulatory Compliance: Safety evaluations help businesses meet complex local and international regulations (such as EU Regulation No 10/2011, FDA requirements, and REACH). This avoids costly penalties, legal issues, and product recalls, ensuring market access.
- Building Brand Trust and Reputation: Demonstrating a commitment to safety through comprehensive evaluations enhances consumer confidence in your products and brand. This transparency can lead to increased customer loyalty and a stronger market position.
- Facilitating the Circular Economy: By verifying the safety of recycled plastics, these evaluations enable their confident use in new products, including sensitive applications. This supports sustainability goals and reduces reliance on virgin plastics.
- Reducing Business Risks and Liabilities: Identifying and mitigating potential hazards early in the product development cycle minimises the risk of safety incidents, which can lead to significant financial and reputational damage.
- Informing Material Selection and Process Optimisation: The data gathered from safety evaluations can provide valuable insights into the suitability of different recycled feedstocks and help optimise recycling processes to improve the quality and safety of the final material.
Why Choose Applus+ Laboratories for Your Safety Evaluation Services?
Choose Applus+ Laboratories as your trusted partner for comprehensive safety evaluation of recycled plastics. We empower your journey towards greater sustainability and consumer confidence through:
- Holistic Expertise: Leveraging advanced analytical capabilities and profound knowledge of food contact regulations and substances of concern to provide a complete service spectrum.
- Dedicated Guidance: Offering expert support and proactive problem-solving to navigate complex safety requirements and ensure the compliance of your recycled materials.
- Innovative Approach: Employing cutting-edge analytical techniques and staying current with evolving regulations to deliver robust safety assessments.
- Certified Standards: Adhering to the highest quality benchmarks, including ISO 17025 accreditation for many procedures, ensuring reliable and detailed analytical reporting.
- Market-Ready Partnership: Supporting your product development by providing critical safety evaluation data, fostering consumer trust and enabling wider adoption of recycled content.