Plastic packaging: Scapegoat in plasticizer scandal of white liquor

Jiugui Liquor, a popular brand of Chinese baijiu (white liquor), has tested positive for excessive amounts of plasticizer. Plasticizer content in Jiugui Liquor far exceeds allowed levels by as much as 260%. A domino effect occurred and sent waves of food safety concerns through the industry.

The public has yet to come out of the shadow of an earlier incident in which plasticizer had caused sexual precocity in children. The media and industrial associations have been making great efforts to publicize correct knowledge about plasticizer, but when reports said that plasticizer exceeding limits widely existed in liquor, a panic mood to plasticizer was re-ignited.

Some experts said that as an environmental hormone, plasticizer widely exists in our daily life and can be found in air, soil and water. Trace plasticizer has no significant influence on health. According to the regulations of WHO, the daily tolerable intake of plasticizer is 0.025mg per kg of body weight. Any intake exceeding the standard will bring damage to people’s health, especially to children.

Why does liquor contain plasticizer? Some people blame packaging materials and suspect that plasticizer may come out of plastics thereof but the author considers this viewpoint unreasonable and distrustful. As we know, most packaging bottles for liquor are made of glass, and the liquor inside the bottle only makes minimal contact with the plastic separator near the cap. The content does not exceed the standard even if there is certain precipitation of plasticizer. If other packaging materials are made of plastics, they are not in direct contact with liquor. Therefore, it is unscientific to blame packaging materials as a major source when plasticizer is found in liquor.

The over-limit plasticizer is highly probable a result of contamination in the production process. The plastic drums and plastic feeding pipes used in conveying and storing liquor, latex tubing that liquor flows through in processing with liquor bump, plastic sheets placed on liquor jar and etc. may contaminate liquor.

Another rumor says that shameful liquor brewers added excessive plasticizer to increase liquor’s viscosity for good hanging cup effect of high-grade liquor. Relevant associations had either chosen to remain silent or try to make fudge over the accusation, making the public more doubtful to the moral level of the liquor industry.

If interested parties cannot give a reasonable explanation on the scandal, the public will lose confidence in liquor makers in China, and the confidence crisis will seriously impact the sound development of the liquor sector and its related industries such as plastics, packaging and transportation.