Use of Recycled Plastics for Food Packaging

Approved, or more accurately nonobjected, ways of using recycled plastics in food packaging can be divided into three categories. The first, sometimes known as tertiary or feedstock recycling, uses a chemical process to break the polymer down into low molecular weight compounds, which are purified and then repolymerized. 

These processes for PET yield materials that can be used interchangeably with virgin PET, and several companies have received letters of no objection for these processes. 

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US NFPA, 1995, Guidelines for the safe use of recycled plastics for food packaging applications. Plastics Recycling Task Force. National Food Processors Association. Washington DC Society of Plastics Industry Inc., March 1995. 

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