Unveiling Microplastic Leaching from Food Packaging Polyethylene Covers: A Preliminary Study

Plastics became the preferred choice for food packaging due to their affordable cost, production efficiency, durability and application versatility. Small scale food beverage shops in metropolitan and urban areas in India frequently employ single-use plastic for packaging hot beverages and other food items, but the inadequately addressed issue of microplastic seepage, particularly from low-density polyethylene (LDPE) covers, remains a concern. The objective of the study was to identify the leachate of plastics from food packaging covers as a result of exposure to hot water at a temperature above 80 ºC. Microplastic sample treated with Fenton’s reagent and filtered using Whatman® grade GF/C microfiber filter paper and visually inspected using a light microscope. The morphological identification and chemical composition of microplastics was done using scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Nature of microplastics was characterized using reflectance Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) analysis. The study observed the presence of around 20-30 microplastics with an average size ranging from 40 to 200 µm. Further, the EDS analysis confirmed the presence of microplastic particles in the filtered leachate, as indicated by the carbon peak at 0.3 to 0.4 KeV. Furthermore, the FT-IR analysis showed the presence of polyethylene microplastics leached from the tested samples. Despite the ban on single-use plastics, their persistent use in food packaging necessitates this study to raise awareness about microplastics and their impact on human health.