Plastic Storage Containers and What the Letters on the Bottom Mean

 
PETE or Polyethylene Terephthalate

Common Uses: Plastic bottles for soda, water, food, liquid soap, and lotion.

PETE is semi-rigid to rigid depending on container wall thickness. Good to fair chemical barrier; not good for strong acids or bases. Good alcohol and solvent barrier; good gas and fair moisture barrier. Good moldability. Sterilizable through EtO and gamma radiation. PETE bottles and jars have good stress crack and impact at room temperature and above.

[The above would be my choice for food containers]

HDPE or High Density Polyethylene

Common Uses: Plastic bottles and jars for cosmetic, food, milk and detergent.

HDPE is flexible but more rigid than LDPE. Natural color is milky white, semi-translucent depending on density. Good impact strength and stress crack resistance. Good chemical resistance. HDPE plastic containers have a good vapor barrier but make for a poor gas barrier. Sterilizaable via EtO or gamma radiation.


PVC or Polyvinyl Chloride

Common uses: Clear food and non food packaging, medical tubing, and wire insultaion.

PVC is Flexible torigid. Transparent to yellowish color in natural state. Good for coatings; fair water and good oxygen barrier. Good chemical resistance. Sterilizable by EtO. PVC bottles and jars have good impact and some stress crack resistance. Poor recycling due to chloride residues.


LDPE - Low Density Polyethylene

Common uses: Plastic bottles for honey, mustard, and bread or food bags.

LDPE is very flexible, natural milky color, translucent with high impact strength. Excellent for mild and strong buffers, good chemical resistance. LDPE plastic bottles have a good water vapor and alcohol barrier properties. Poor gas barrier. Sterilizable with EtO or gamma radiation.

PP - Polypropylene

Common uses: Plastic containers for ketchup, yogurt, margarine, and medicine.

PP is a rigid, solid, durable and comes in container or cap forms. Opaque, natural grayish yellow in natural form. Excellent stress crack and impact resistance. PP bottles and jars have excellent moisture barrier, good oil and alcohol barrier, poor gas barrier properties. Good chemical resistance. Sterilizable with EtO or autoclaving.


PS or Polystyrenez

Common uses. Packaging for CDs, aspirin bottles, cups, plates and cutlery.

PS is a transparent, rigid and glass like polymer. Light and heat stable, biologically inert and non-toxic. Good resistance to inorganic chemicals. PS containers have good impact and stress crack resistance, poor barrier properties. EtO or Gamma sterilizable.


OTHER or Other Plastics

Common uses: Plastic Bottles for squeezable Ketchup and syrup.

The miscellaneous classification includes plastic that may contain multiple layers of different types of materials, like the above plastics. Plastic bottles and containers form this groups are not easily recyclable. Some plastic that fall under this code are poly carbonate., Polyetraflouraethylene and Teflon.