On plastic garbage cans I've seen some with a 2 inside a triangle and the symbol HDPE and some with a 4 inside triangle and LDPE. Does anyone know if either of these is food safe? I'm trying to come up with something reasonable in size and price for water storage for late GIs.

-- Sylvia (bluebirdms@aol.com), October 10, 1999

Answers

High Density PolyEthylene Low Density PolyEthylene.

Try and get clear bags if possible, but those are usually VERY thin. White is better than colored (whoops, I'm talking about garbage bags...)

Anything is better than nothing, but as for being food-safe? they're designed for holding garbage in an attractive package.

PolyEthylene in and of itself is chemically inert, but the concerns I have seen in the past is that the colorants *may* leach out into the water.

-- plonk! (realaddress@hotmail.com), October 10, 1999.

Rather than trying to kludge together something, why not look at using material that's made for just that purpose?

Small Water Bags

30 gallons =$37.95. Now while that's more than a common trash can, it isn't much to pay for potable water. As you buy bigger bags, the price per gallon goes way down.

-- de (delewis@XOUTinetone.net), October 11, 1999.

Sylvia,

A while back, I wrote to Rubbermaid about this same question. Their response was basically, they don't certify their garbage cans as food safe, but the plastic they're made from meets a food safe reg, and they know of cases where they have been used for this purpose without problems. To avoid bothering anyone with my same old response to this question, you can see my full post about this at http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001TPZ (third answer down).

regards,

e.m.

-- Eyell Makedo (make_do@hotmail.com), October 11, 1999.