Food Safety considerations of PLA Preform and Closures for Bottled Drinking Water

Greetings of the Day,

Dear Respective Members,

We are one of the leading bottled water manufacturing company in Qatar, we are currently working on replacing our PET & HDPE packaging with Polylactic Acid (PLA) packaging materials in regards to, may we have your valuable recommendations and comments on the PLA Bottles for Bottled Drinking Water application.

Also please post your valuable comments related to the issues that may rise in future when it comes to "Food safety" part.

Hi ,

Do you have the  comparative migration test between the type of bottles ? Have you done a stability study to re-asses your shelf life ?  are there any regulatory requirement in your country ?  

Dear Mr. Ganeshkashinath,

Do you have the  comparative migration test between the type of bottles ? - yes i have from the PET bottle and PLA bottle manufactures which was done against the EU 10/2011 regulations and the results are within the limit

Have you done a stability study to re-asses your shelf life ? - Under progress at our in house laboratory

are there any regulatory requirement in your country ? - So far no regulatory regulations that i have come across for the plant based packaging materials.

Please do an accelerated stability study / forced  degradation study( elevated temp. / UV exposure )  .   Also , from the manufacturer get the degradation / impurity profile of the  materials used in the manufacture of the bottles . Once the stability study is over use the same sample to analyze through a mass spec for degradation or impurity profile in the water . This will to some extent establish the safety of the bottles for its intended use. 

Thank you Mr. Ganesh,

we are in the process of accelerated shelf life analysis, meantime, if possible could you please refer some article related to the biodegradable packaging materials.