Five Associations from the supply chain for fibre-based packaging solutions for food recently liaised with numerous other project partners from industry, the research community and test institutes to agree on a method for the “Testing of paper and board – determination of the migration of mineral oil hydrocarbons from food contact materials manufactured from pulp containing recycled paper or board”, that was published in April by Beuth-Verlag as DIN SPEC 5010.
The associations involved are VDP The German Pulp and Paper Association, FFI Folding Carton Association, VDW German Corrugated Board Association, VPWP German Association for Corrugated Based Papers and BLL German Federation of Food Law and Food Science.
Attention was drawn to mineral oil hydrocarbons in connection with food packaging after it was discovered in 2009 that they can be found in packaging made from recycled board or paper and can migrate into food. Printing inks containing mineral oil, which are used primarily in newspaper printing, were identified as the main source of the hydrocarbons in recycled paper.
With DIN SPEC 5010, a standardised measuring process is now available, with which paper and board that are manufactured from pulp containing recycled materials and are provided with an integrated barrier can be evaluated to determine the effectiveness of their barrier properties. The measuring process can be applied in this context to unprocessed paper and board (in reels or sheets), as it enables the migration levels of the different barrier board solutions available on the market to be determined.
The manufacturers of such fibre-based paper and board with a barrier function are familiar with the individual processing conditions for their barrier products and pass relevant information about, for example, creasing requirements and possible packaging designs on to their customers. The converters are able as a result to estimate the level of migration from the finished packaging used for a specific application in the context of their risk evaluation procedures on the basis of the migration levels calculated for the unprocessed materials in accordance with DIN SPEC 5010. A PDF file of DIN SPEC 5010 can be obtained free of charge in German and English with immediate effect via the Beuth WebShop www.beuth.de
