Migration and Safety Aspects of Plastic Food Packaging Materials: Need for Reconsideration?

The aim and the novelty of the present review article was to provide the literature with a collective study focusing on the migration and safety issues in plastic food packaging materials that have been raised in recent years and proposing the use of safer and biodegradable ones. The conventional packaging materials used for the preservation of foods may exhibit many disadvantages that are related to the migration of micromolecular chemical substances incorporated in the packaging material net to the packaged food. There are many chemical substances in the matrix of plastic packaging materials and epoxy-resins that are used in food packaging materials, varnishes, and can coatings. Many migrants have high toxicity, such as acetaldehyde, antimony, antimony (III) oxide, 2,4-di-tert-butylphenol, tris (2,4-di-tert-butylphenol) phosphate, tris(2,4-di-tert-butylphenyl) phosphite, bisphenol A, and the plasticizers di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate), di-n-butyl phthalate, benzyl-butylphthalate, di-isononylphthalate, and di-isododecylphthalate. It is therefore necessary to take a detailed look at the migrants in conventional packaging materials (plastics) used for foods, point out the migration of certain compounds into foods and the need to reconsider their use, and establish updated protocols for the safety of consumers and the industrial production of biodegradable packaging materials (films or coatings) based on natural sources.