The Recycled-Plastic Catch

"Recycled" reads like a safety clearance. But the gold-standard test screens for the wrong contaminants, and outside the regulated food-contact channel no label tells you whether any chemical gate touched your product. In this episode, we debate: does the word "recycled" deserve the safety reassurance a careful shopper reads into it — or is it an origin story masquerading as a safety clearance? We unpack 6 concepts you will need before reading the article: the EFSA challenge test, the conveyor vs. the reactor, cyclic oligomers, the gated lane vs. the un-gated lane, mass balance, and antimony as the universal PET catalyst. Related episodes: The Bottle That Outlived Its Decade, The Words That Die Topics: recycled plastic, rPET, food contact materials, challenge test, oligomers, antimony, EFSA, mass balance, deposit return, plastic packaging Read the full article: youreanatural.com/consumer-intelligence/the-recycled-plastic-catch