On August 10, 2018, the European Food Safety Authority’s (EFSA) Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes and Processing Aids (CEP Panel) published a scientific opinion on the post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycling process ‘General Plastic,’ based on the Starlinger Decon technology. Hot caustic washed and dried PET flakes from post-consumer PET containers, comprising no more than 5% PET from non-food consumer applications, are used as input to this process. The PET flakes are preheated and then submitted to solid‐state polycondensation (SSP) in a continuous reactor at high temperature under vacuum and gas flow. The provided challenge test demonstrated that the recycling process can ensure to limit the migration of potential unknown contaminants into food to 0.1 μg/kg food. Therefore, the CEP Panel concluded that recycled PET (rPET) produced from the process ‘General Plastics’ is safe for the manufacture of food contact materials and articles with up to 100% rPET content. Finished articles are intended for contact with all types of foodstuffs for long‐term storage at room temperature, with or without hotfill. However, trays made of ‘General Plastic’ rPET should not be used in microwave and conventional ovens.

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CEP (August 10, 2018). “Safety assessment of the process ‘General Plastic’, based on Starlinger Decon technology, used to recycle post‐consumer PET into food contact materials.EFSA Journal 16(8):5388.

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