The Thai Industrial Standards Institute (TISI) announced Thailand’s Industry Ministry has set new standards for food-contact plastic bags in hot, cold, frozen, and microwave heating applications.
The new standards set contamination limits by heavy metals such as lead, aluminium, barium, cobalt, copper, iron, lithium, manganese, nickel, zinc, antimony, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury, europium, gadolinium, lanthanum, and terbium.
The TISI also voted for rules introducing heat and cold resistance standards. Hot food bags must show heat resistance up to 100 C; cold food bags up to 60 C; and frozen food bags up to -18C. Plastic bags for microwavable food must withstand temperatures of at least 80 C.
In addition, paints used for printing on plastic bags must be food-grade paints in line with the TISI 1069 standard.
Thailand’s Minister of Industry Pimpatra Wichaikul said ‘plastic bags are a product that people widely use to carry food and drinks in their daily lives’ and that the new rules will ‘provide more safety for the people’.
She added that the TISI has been instructed to speed up control of other products that come into direct contact with food, such as plastic, paper, or stainless-steel food containers.