Re: [APD] Can one just give up? - safe plastics

[Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>]

> Does that come back to the PE / PP issue, with (I believe) Polyethylene 
> being approved for containers used for human consumption and Polypropylene 
> being not. You should only use PE buckets for any longer than short term 
> storage of water from your aquarium.
>
> (I usually turn a bucket upside down and check for PE or PET being written 
> on the bottom.)

I'm not aware of any health issues with polypropylene containers. I usually 
see polyethylene used, but that's most likely due to PE being a cheaper 
material. Most plastic resins are stable and don't pose any health 
problems, but the additives used for things like flexibility (plasticizers) 
and UV stabilization sometimes do.

The red issue I think is due to the pigment used since (from my plastics 
catalogs) the red version of many containers will be specifically mentioned 
as NOT being FDA approved while the other colors all are for a given item. 
That's pretty common, and since all the colors are molded from the same 
resin and only different pigments are used, I think the pigment is the 
problem. I've seen FDA approved red containers, but if you can't be sure 
it's easier to just err on the side of caution and not use the red 
containers for livestock.

      -Bill


*****************************
Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator

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