Economy
Millions of toxic food boxes seized in swoop
By WANG YAN (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-04-28 07:21
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BEIJING - Quality inspectors in East China's Jiangxi province seized more than 7 million toxic disposable food boxes in a one-day raid on Saturday.
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Dong Jinshi (right), secretary-general of the International Food Packaging Association, and Fan Qianming, deputy chief of Jiangxi provincial bureau of quality and technical supervision, check the storage of toxic disposable food boxes last Saturday in the storehouse of a local plastic products company in Nanchang, Jiangxi province. ZHANG ZUZHEN / FOR CHINA DAILY |
Seven companies in Nanchang, the capital city of Jiangxi, were busted for manufacturing the long banned foam boxes, a food safety expert who joined local quality inspectors on the raid told China Daily on Tuesday.
"All of the companies were using non-food raw materials to produce the boxes, such as plastic waste and optical brightener," said Dong Jinshi, secretary-general of the Hong Kong-based International Food Packaging Association (IFPA).
According to Dong, foam food boxes were banned as early as 1999 to solve the problem of white pollution in the country and a follow-up regulation in 2005 prohibited investment in foam boxes, as well as their import, production, sale and use.
Zhou Nanchang, an official with Jiangxi provincial bureau of quality and technical supervision, confirmed with China Daily on Tuesday that a crackdown against unsafe food boxes was carried out on Saturday.
A report provided by the IFPA said Zhou led seven teams that visited the manufacturers.
A total of 7.2 million unsafe foam boxes, more than 80 machines used in their production, 846 bags of plastic waste particles and other raw materials were confiscated in the raid, the report said.
"Based on the average weight of 4 to 5 grams each, there were enough raw materials to make 10 million foam boxes," it said.
The boxes were found on sale in a local market in Nanchang, though some had also been sold elsewhere in East China, including Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui.
Some IFPA employees paid a visit to the local market in Nanchang ahead of the crackdown, where "plenty of foam boxes were giving off a heavy smell of plastic waste," the report said.
"There were even signs of 'environmental friendly' and 'degradable' on the boxes," it added. "Some dealers said the foam boxes were each sold at less than 0.1 yuan ($1.46 cent) and they saw a daily business volume of dozens of bags."
Most of the illegal manufacturers were located in suburban areas of Nanchang or in small workshops off the city's main roads.
CHINA DAILY
(China Daily 04/28/2010 page5)
