Safety assessment of the process ‘Coexpan Deutschland’, based on EREMA Basic technology, used to recycle post‐consumer PET into food contact materials

. Efsa Panel On Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings And Processing Aids (cef) (1) , Vittorio Silano , Claudia Bolognesi , Laurence Castle , Jean Pierre J. P. Cravedi (2) , Karl‐heinz Engel , Paul Fowler , Konrad Grob , Rainer Gürtler , Trine Husøy , Sirpa Kärenlampi , Wim Mennes , André Penninks , Andrew Smith , Maria de Fátima Tavares Poças , Christina Tlustos , Detlef Wölfle , Holger Zorn , Corina‐aurelia Zugravu , Vincent Dudler , Nathalie Gontard (3) , Eugenia Lampi , Cristina Nerin , Constantine Papaspyrides , Katharina Volk , Maria Rosaria Milana

1 European Food Safety Authority = Autorité européenne de sécurité des aliments
2 ToxAlim - ToxAlim
3 UMR IATE - Ingénierie des Agro-polymères et Technologies Émergentes

This scientific opinion of the EFSA Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings and Processing Aids (CEF Panel) deals with the safety assessment of the Coexpan Deutschland recycling process (EU register number RECYC0140), which is based on the EREMA Basic technology. The input to this process is hot washed and dried poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) flakes originating from collected post-consumer PET containers, containing no more than 5% PET from non-food consumer applications. In this technology, post-consumer washed and dried PET flakes are heated in a continuous reactor under vacuum before being extruded. Having examined the results of the challenge test provided, the Panel concluded that the continuous reactor step (step 2) is the critical step that determines the decontamination efficiency of the process. The operating parameters controlling its performance are well defined and are temperature, pressure and residence time. It was demonstrated that, depending on the operating conditions, the recycling process under evaluation is able to ensure that the level of migration of potential unknown contaminants into food is below a conservatively modelled migration of 0.15 lg/kg food, derived from the exposure scenario for toddlers. The Panel concluded that recycled PET obtained from the process is not of safety concern when the final thermoformed trays and containers manufactured with the recycled sheets and not used for packaging water contain up to 100% recycled post-consumer PET. Thermoformed trays are not intended to be used and should not be used in microwave and conventional ovens.

Mots clés: EREMA; Coexpan Deutschland; food contact materials; plastic; poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET); recycling process; safety assessment

Domaines: Alimentation et Nutrition

. Efsa Panel On Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings And Processing Aids (cef), Vittorio Silano, Claudia Bolognesi, Laurence Castle, Jean Pierre J. P. Cravedi, et al.. Safety assessment of the process ‘Coexpan Deutschland’, based on EREMA Basic technology, used to recycle post‐consumer PET into food contact materials. EFSA Journal, 2017, 15 (6), 13 p. ⟨10.2903/j.efsa.2017.4846⟩. ⟨hal-01606505⟩