Plastic Materials and Articles in Contact with Food Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1998

B. Special provisions relating to overall migration

6.—(1) Subject to sub-paragraph (2), any method of analytical determination may be used to prove excess of an overall migration limit in relation to a plastic material or article.

(2) In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations where it is alleged that a plastic material or article does not comply with regulation 7 it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that—

(a) if an aqueous simulant specified in Schedule 4 had been used, and the analytical determination of the total quantity of substances released by a sample of the plastic material or article tested had been carried out by evaporation of the simulant and weighing of the residue, or

(b) if rectified olive oil or any of its substitutes had been used as a simulant and—

(i) a sample of the plastic material or article had been weighed before and after contact with the simulant,

(ii) the simulant absorbed by the sample had been extracted and determined quantitatively,

(iii) the quantity of simulant so found had been subtracted from the weight of the sample measured after contact with the simulant, and

(iv) the difference between the initial and corrected final weights had been determined to represent the overall migration of the sample examined,

there would have been no such excess so determined

7.—(1) Where a plastic material or article is intended to come into repeated contact with food and it is technically impossible to carry out the test described in paragraph 5, the test shall be so modified as to enable the level of migration occurring during the third such test to be determined and, subject to sub-paragraph (2), such a determination may be used to prove excess of an overall migration limit in relation to a plastic material or article.

(2) In any proceedings for an offence under these Regulations where it is alleged, following determination under sub-paragraph (1), that a plastic material or article does not comply with regulation 7 it shall be a defence for the person charged to prove that, if—

(a) three identical shapes of the plastic material or article had been procured;

(b) one of them had been subjected to the appropriate test according with paragraph 4 and the overall migration determined (M₁);

(c) the second and third samples had been subjected to the same conditions of temperature but the period of contact had been two or three times that specified and overall migration had been determined in each case (M₁ and M₂ respectively); and

(d) the plastic material or article had been deemed to comply with the overall migration limit relevant to it provided that either M₁ or M₂—M₃ did not exceed the overall migration limit,

the plastic material or article would not have been deemed to exceed that limit.

8.—(1) Any plastic material or article which exceeds its overall migration limit by an amount not exceeding the analytical tolerance specified in sub-paragraph (2) shall be deemed for the purposes of these Regulations not to exceed its overall migration limit.

(2) The following analytical tolerances shall be applied for limits of overall migration—

(a) 20 mg/kg or, as the case may be, 3 milligrams per square decimetre in migration tests using as a simulant rectified olive oil or substitutes;

(b) 6 mg/kg or, as the case may be, 1 milligram per square decimetre in migration tests using other simulants referred to in Schedule 4.