Assessing the safety of recycled food contact materials

4 Assessing the safety of recycled food contact materials 

Class 1 materials remaining from production by the manufacturing or converting industry where their history is well known. These materials typically are always under the control of the processor. Provided that good manufacturing practice is followed and contamination can be excluded, this material is as suitable for direct contact with foodstuffs as new material. Class 1 material can be defined as post-industrial recycled polymers and corresponds to US FDA s primary recycling (pre-consumer scrap). 

Class 2 PCR material which had been used for food packaging for well-known applications and re-collected pure-grade by the recycler, for instance, via a deposit system. This material typically contains only post-consumer food packaging materials. Due to its post-consumer character, the recycler usually does not have complete control of the plastics material over the time period from its first use up to its return. 

Class 3 impurified PCR material and possibly mixed plastics which have been used for certain applications outside the food packaging area that enters the recycling feedstream via mixed plastics collection. This material could include packaging materials from non-food packaging applications. 

Class 4 any class 1 to 3 material which had been chemically reprocessed by depolymerisation into monomers or oligomers from which, after purification, a new polymer has been regenerated. 

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