Do not Pack Food with Shopping Bags!

Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) said plastic bags crackle, especially black ones are not feasible to be used to package food ready to eat, but often hawkers used to wrap foods such as meatballs, noodles or fried.

"The bag is black crackle mainly recycled plastic. This is dangerous because the previously unknown history of use in the manufacturing process and is often added ingredients such as antioxidants or colorants," said Director of Product Control and Hazardous Materials Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) Mustafa in media briefing on Wednesday.

Because it is a recycled product, a history of prior use can be anything, including a former pesticide containers, hospital waste, animal waste / human and heavy metal waste....................

The addition of other materials such as dyes added risk of malicious use crackle bag which also has the danger of containing carcinogens or cancer-triggering apart when heated.

To avoid the risk, Mustafa advise not to use bags for wrapping food crackle, crackle or not use for direct contact with food.

Besides plastic bag, Mustafa also highlights the use of waste paper as a wrapper such as fried foods. "Not all qualify as food packaging paper, especially newsprint and magazines, which are often used instead," he said.

The ink used for printing newspapers and magazines may contain lead metal Pb or harmful because it can move into the food and into the human body, but it is also the danger posed by the dye newspaper / magazine called ITX.

By SK Head of POM on Food Packaging Materials No.. HK.00.05.55 .. 6497, plastic food wrapping materials can be divided into seven types and must be adapted to the food to be packaged.

There are seven types of plastics that are allowed as a food packaging material is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), low density polyethylene (LDPE), poly propylene, polystyrene and other plastics.

Mustafa said BPOM supervise the use of plastic materials that do not fit the designation through NADFC 31 in the provinces. "Right now we are trying to match the standards set are suited to the conditions in the field. Far no plastic products that exceed a specified threshold," said Mustafa.