Verifying the prevalence of PET plastic in food packaging and testing its leachability to antimony (Sb)‎ in bottled drinking water

Abstract EN

Nowadays, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is the plastic of choice in food packaging worldwide.

there are claims describing PET as a safe and unleachable plastic.

in this study, prevalence of PET in Jeddah city was first investigated, where 156 different food products packaged in plastics, were examined in a number of major superstores to classify their plastics through their plastic identification code (from 1 to 7), imprinted on each plastic package.

Analyzed data signified PET as the prevalent type(42.95%), followed by PP and HDPE (20.51%, 17.31%, respectively).

PS, O (other), LDPE, and PVC were the least common types (4.49%, 2.56%, 1.28% and 0.64%, respectively).

More than 10% of the examined items were codeless and, hence, could not be identified.

PET leachability was further tested for the heavy metal antimony (Sb) (used in PET fabrication) in bottled drinking water (8 brands) under 6- month storage conditions : room temperature (23O C) and incubator (50O C), both of which have indicated highly significant (p≤ 0.0001) effects on the Sb level, compared with time-zero concentration (initial).