1: Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) – Safe
Problem: antimony, EA
PET are often used to hold soft drinks, water, juice, sports drinks and other drinkable or edible liquids. It is also used in microwavable food trays and oven-friendly thin plastic.
This plastic is considered to be safe but there is still risk because a metalloid element called antimony which can be leached from PET bottle is consider to be unsafe while exceeding the limit 6 ppb (maximum containment level) set by US environmental Protection Agency.
According to the U.S. Centre for Disease
Control (CDC), people having too much of antimony have experience adverse health effects such as joint or muscle pain, vomiting, problems with the blood and heart problems.
While normally the amount of antimony migrated to water is well below the level (6 ppb) mentioned above according to Dr Paul and his colleagues’ research in 2007, the rate of this leakage is proportional to temperature. As a result, after periods of time and increased temperature, unhealthy level of concentration antimony can be achieved. For a bottle stored at 60 Celsius degrees, to exceed the unhealthy level (6 ppb) needs 176 days. Moreover, a bottled stored at 85 Celsius degrees needs just 1.3 days which is achievable in cars in the summer.
In addition, a research done in 2010 by Dr Cheng and his colleagues shows that microwaving can significantly increase the rate which antimony leaches into PET bottles and possibly higher then the limit 6 ppb set by USEPA; Part of antimony in PET bottles comes from the contaminants in production process and therefore could be improved by washing before first use in the manufacturing process.
And in 2012, a study done by Dr Syam indicated that, apart from antimony, bromine, which can irritate the skin, mucous membranes and tissues can also leach in to PET bottles, but it is unknown that whether the leakage level is high enough to constitute danger in this study.
2: High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) – low hazard
Problem: EA