PMID- 16312023
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20060209
LR  - 20131121
IS  - 0265-203X (Print)
IS  - 0265-203X (Linking)
VI  - 22
IP  - 10
DP  - 2005 Oct
TI  - Post-consumer contamination in high-density polyethylene (HDPE) milk bottles and 
      the design of a bottle-to-bottle recycling process.
PG  - 999-1011
AB  - Six hundred conventional recycled HDPE flake samples, which were recollected and 
      sorted in the UK, were screened for post-consumer contamination levels. Each 
      analysed sample consisted of 40-50 individual flakes so that the amount of 
      analysed individual containers was in the range 24,000-30,000 post-consumer milk 
      bottles. Predominant contaminants in hot-washed flake samples were unsaturated 
      oligomers, which can be also be found in virgin high-density polyethylene (HDPE) 
      pellet samples used for milk bottle production. In addition, the flavour compound 
      limonene, the degradation product of antioxidant additives di-tert-butylphenol 
      and low amounts of saturated oligomers were found in higher concentrations in the 
      post-consumer samples in comparison with virgin HDPE. However, the overall 
      concentrations in post-consumer recycled samples were similar to or lower than 
      concentration ranges in comparison with virgin HDPE. Contamination with other 
      HDPE untypical compounds was rare and was in most cases related to non-milk 
      bottles, which are <2.1% of the input material of the recycling process. The 
      maximum concentration found in one sample of 1 g was estimated as 130 mg kg(-1), 
      which corresponds to a contamination of 5200-6500 mg kg(-1) in the individual 
      bottle. The recycling process investigated was based on an efficient sorting 
      process, a hot-washing of the ground bottles, and a further deep-cleaning of the 
      flakes with high temperatures and vacuum. Based on the fact that the 
      contamination levels of post-consumer flake samples are similar to virgin HDPE 
      and on the high cleaning efficiency of the super-clean recycling process 
      especially for highly volatile compounds, the recycling process investigated is 
      suitable for recycled post-consumer HDPE bottles for direct food-contact 
      applications. However, hand-picking after automatically sorting is recommended to 
      decrease the amount of non-milk bottles. The conclusions for suitability are 
      valid, provided that the migration testing of recyclate contains milk bottles up 
      to 100% and that both shelf-life testing and sensorial testing of the products 
      are successful, which are topics of further investigations.
FAU - Welle, F
AU  - Welle F
AD  - Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging (IVV), Freising, 
      Germany. welle@ivv.fraunhofer.de
LA  - eng
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
PL  - England
TA  - Food Addit Contam
JT  - Food additives and contaminants
JID - 8500474
RN  - 588X2YUY0A (Methylene Chloride)
RN  - 9002-88-4 (Polyethylene)
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - Chromatography, Gas/methods
MH  - Conservation of Natural Resources
MH  - Decontamination/methods
MH  - Environmental Exposure/adverse effects
MH  - Equipment Design
MH  - *Food Contamination
MH  - *Food Packaging
MH  - Humans
MH  - Methylene Chloride/analysis
MH  - *Milk
MH  - Molecular Weight
MH  - *Polyethylene/analysis
MH  - Principal Component Analysis
EDAT- 2005/11/29 09:00
MHDA- 2006/02/10 09:00
CRDT- 2005/11/29 09:00
PHST- 2005/11/29 09:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2006/02/10 09:00 [medline]
PHST- 2005/11/29 09:00 [entrez]
AID - 10.1080/02652030500157742 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Food Addit Contam. 2005 Oct;22(10):999-1011. doi: 10.1080/02652030500157742.