You polish off the ice cream, rinse out its plastic container and now have a new carton to store leftovers you want to freeze. Yet experts warn that it isn’t a good idea to reuse these containers.
“They’re manufactured for holding ice cream and are not meant for storing other food items,” warns Kerstin Etzenbach-Effers, from a consumer centre in western Germany. “Putting, say, hot and fatty soup into such a container could mean getting chemicals into the food.”
Chemicals that could leach into the food from the container include plasticisers or UV stabilisers, as well as substances that have not been intentionally added to the plastic but were created as a byproduct during its production. Under conformity declarations, the makers of plastic ice cream containers guarantee that the packaging is harmless when used at low temperatures – but nothing further.
Instead, consumers should buy containers specifically made for freezing, says the expert. “They should be made of polypropylene, which is recognisable by the PP symbol that’s imprinted on them.”
There are also glass container made for freezing. “However, they should not be filled to the brim, but instead have 1 or 2 centimetres of space, since the contents expand when frozen,” she adds.
Another bad idea with glass containers is to take them straight from the freezer and put them in hot water. “When the temperature goes from minus 18 degrees Celsius to 100, it can explode,” she says.
Etzenbach-Effers recommends moving away from using plastic to store food in general, not just during freezing. Containers made of glass, porcelain or steel are better. Glasses or jars with PVC-free plastic lids are also great options, she says. These are often dyed blue.
Her final tips: Harmful chemicals leach out of plastic faster during high temperatures — so don’t microwave food in a plastic container. – dpa
