Home Depot Homer buckets are great for holding lots of things, but they’re not food-grade.
Yes, these buckets are made from HDPE (high density polyethylene) and have a #2 recycling symbol.
Yes, HDPE is used in food-grade products. But that doesn’t make these buckets food-grade.
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Leaktite, the manufacture, says (with added line breaks for improved readability):
The #2 symbol does not necessarily mean the bucket is food-safe. Virgin, or non-recycled, HDPE is food-safe, but if that cannot be guaranteed, the bucket should not be labeled as such.
Our products are more geared toward paint and DIY so we do not FDA certify.
The buckets we label as food-safe are run on a segregated machine and use virgin HDPE.
Currently, we only offer white as food-safe; they will be called out with a food-safe sticker. The orange buckets also have colorant that is not tested as food-safe which adds another level of uncertainty.
So, HDPE can be used in the production of food-grade containers, but not all containers made from HDPE can be considered food-grade.
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Products made from recycled HDPE have the potential to be food-grade, but require testing and close monitoring to meet FDA guidelines. The FDA, in their guidelines for the use of recycled plastics, says:
The possibility that chemical contaminants in plastic materials intended for recycling may remain in the recycled material and could migrate into the food the material contacts is one of the major considerations for the safe use of recycled plastics for food-contact applications.
The FDA’s document is 21 pages long and discusses all the things needed in order for products made from recycled plastic to be considered food-grade.
Leaktite says that their food-grade buckets are explicitly labeled as such, and that their food-grade buckets are made from “virgin HDPE” materials.
Is there harm in using non-food-grade buckets? I don’t know. The dye could leach out – and definitely fades and breaks down when exposed to outdoor conditions and UV light. And as the FDA mentions, there could be chemical contaminant residuals from the use or recycled materials.
I use food-grade buckets for planting fruits and vegetables, although not so much anymore after moving to grow bags and raised beds. I also use them for bulk food prep and to make fermented pickles.
Some of my planter buckets didn’t have drain holes, as I had used them with self-watering reservoirs. Fermentation creates a highly acidic and high-salt environment. A couple of dollars extra for food-grade buckets made me feel more comfortable.
When it comes to food grade considerations, you can’t just make assumptions. It’s either food-grade, or it’s not. And in the case of buckets and pails, food-grade containers are advertised and labeled as such.
Rather than wonder about the potential for safety concerns, I feel it’s better to simply go with food-grade buckets when the differences might matter.
There’s a lot of misinformation online. You can’t just look at the recycling number code. That can tell you if a container is made from a plastic used in food-grade containers, and not whether the container itself is food-grade.
If in doubt, ask questions. Leaktite answered dozens of questions about Home Depot’s iconic orange Homer bucket, each time saying in different ways that no, these buckets are not food-grade.
If you want a food-grade bucket, you have to buy one that’s advertised or labeled as such.
Leaktite’s food-grade buckets have a special label with a spoon, fork, and knife.
Are food-grade buckets safe? That depends on the application. Personally, I feel it’s a far better starting point than buckets whose food contact safety is not certified, advertised, disclosed, or labeled in any regard.
Home Depot and Lowe’s both have food-grade buckets in white.
There are other manufacturers as well; Uline sells food grade plastic buckets in a rainbow of colors. (I like that Uline’s are thicker – they have a 90 mil wall thickness vs 70 mil.)
I have only ever seen food grade buckets made from HDPE. Polypropylene seems to more common for thinner-wall bulk food prep containers.
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Robert
I had to snort when I saw the headline. Would never occur to me to put food, even harvested produce in HD buckets.
Rog
Agreed this is something I wouldn’t do, but I can’t assume others would think the same.
Stuart
I got into a mild argument about this, and found a ton of bad information and lots of people insisting these buckets must be food-safe “because of HDPE.”
mark
Man, ppl really don’t understand additives in manufacturing. Used to work in plastic injection molding as engineer. Product gonna be outside? Add plasticizers (like lead) in order to maintain flexibility longer. Colors? Had crazy warnings on them in their concentrated forms and were liquids added to the machines as the resin pellets were melted. Like printer ink cartridges warnings. Some colors worse than others. None of this is going to be food safe. Yes it’s going to leech into the buckets’ contents. It’s just mixed in the wall of the bucket some is on the surface immeadiately. Likely using titanium dioxide and other approved colorants that are already food additives in order to color the food safe buckets. More expensive, so not all made this way
J. Newell
I would agree, but I’ve seen shellfish and crustaceans put into these and similar buckets that I’m pretty sure aren’t food grade. But if Stuart hadn’t mentioned this, it also wouldn’t have occurred to me to check, to be honest. I think I would have assumed HDPE is food-grade, and obviously isn’t.
Bonnie
The ocean isn’t foodsafe either, so until they’re cleaned/cooked I wouldn’t worry that much.
Chris
Honestly, I could see someone maybe using it for produce. But I wouldn’t expect anyone to be serving soup at a soup kitchen out of one of these.
I think this is actually a useful post. Not to me, as I personally wouldn’t have done it. But it does serve as a reminder.
IronWood
When my wife and I first got together she was managing a restaurant. All the 5 gallon pickle buckets you could handle were free for the taking. Ah, those were good days. We still have pickle buckets in the garden shed!
Scott K
Took me a while to get rid of the smell- but I also reused some 5 gallon pickle buckets for home brewing when my designated buckets got used for cleaning once.
Bob
Back in the day I was a part time bartender. At an annual local industry show folks routinely stored sample cocktails in HD and Lowes buckets. Alcohol being a solvent I could see the potential for being able to release any chemicals or the dyes in the hdpe. However I never did see any dye separation. Chemical release? Who knows. Not saying it was a good idea but no one ever died or got sick that I recal. Unless you count a hangover lol.
I alway thought it was kind of funny because being a bartender or working in the restaurant industry you could definitely have access to chambro and other food grade containers.
If you can’t find food grade for whatever reason they make food safe plastic bags/liners. You can use whatever kind of bucket you want as a holder and use the bag as a liner to keep the food/drink away from non-food grade container. Obviously use your head. Don’t use something that had motor oil or some kind of known chemical in it.
Honestly I would think the guys using pressure treated lumber for the edges of their raised bed garden are at a higher poisoning risk than using a random new and clean plastic bucket.
Bottom line Stuart is absolutely right. Unless it says food grade there is a risk. I imagine it’s probably a small risk but we’re talking one or two dollars extra per bucket. It’s not gonna break the back. Besides you look way more professional serving your bathtub gin samples in a food grade container 😉
Stuart
Lumber suitability for raised garden beds is another common question with tons of bad information out there.
For me, pressure treated would be a big no-no. People will argue that the chemicals are different these days, but it’s not worth any risk. Cedar is good, and I opted for cypress when I couldn’t find good cedar. Even pine would be okay but with a much shorter lifespan.
I see people growing veggies out of cinder blocks. Why?!
Phranq
I just built a cinder block raised bed this year. Used to use cedar, but it rotted away too quickly.
This post was extremely helpful. I always wondered about the HD and Lowes buckets for growing tomatoes and peppers.
Stuart
I’ve seen some YouTubers put sealants and treatments on cinder blocks, but I still wouldn’t trust it. I’d sooner build or buy a galvanized steel panel raised bed.
Home Depot buckets don’t hold up against UV exposure. I grew sunflowers (for decorative purposes) in them a few years ago, and it was dramatic how much the color degraded in just one season. They were also more brittle.
For one or two I’d get the white food-grade buckets from wherever. There’s no Firehouse Subs with pickle buckets near me, and asking random stores for used buckets doesn’t seem like a sustainable source.
I like that Uline has smaller (3.5 gal) and taller (7 gal) food-grade bucket options.
There’s also grow bags.
If you use a non-food-grade bucket, but there are drainage holes, it’s possible contaminants or broken down dyes can flow towards the bottom and out. But for the slight price difference, when buying new, I figured I’d rather not worry about any of that, and simply went with food grade.
I have no problem with everyone making their own determination. I just felt it necessary to combat the “all HDPE is food grade, ergo all buckets are food grade” misinformation out there.
Bonnie
My grandfather made custom concrete raised beds for my master gardener grandmother because he didn’t want to have to keep replacing them. Never had any issues, though obviously that’s not hard evidence.
Hell, people used to use creosote timbers for raised beds.
Koko The Talking Ape
It’s good to be cautious, but apparently the word is that current PT lumber is safe for raised beds. I built some raised beds for a friend, so I did some research on it. The old arsenic-based treatment (pre-2004) was toxic, but the current compounds are based on copper or boric acid-based. Some copper does leach out into the soil, but it’s not dangerous.
Here’s the Oregon State Extension Service article about it.
https://extension.oregonstate.edu/ask-extension/featured/raised-bed-lumber-pressure-treated-safe
Bob Vila agrees, though he warns that skin or eye contact with the wood dust can be irritating.
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/7-important-things-to-know-about-pressure-treated-wood/
Also, I read somewhere that the copper leached into the soil may actually improve plant health, depending on many factors, but I can’t find the reference.
I suppose if you want to be super-safe, you could line the wood with vinyl or copper flashing (because the treatment will corrode aluminum and leach it into the soil), but both vinyl and copper will have their own issues with leaching. The copper flashing would probably leach more copper than the treatment itself.
Or you can use a few coats of preservative, but that also may have its own chemical issues.
Otherwise, I guess you could source a roll of food-safe HDPE sheet and make your own flashing. I have no idea where to find that. It probably should wrap around at least two sides of the lumber, maybe three, but if it traps moisture against the wood without ever evaporating, that might affect the wood’s long-term durability.
Kevin
We use 5 gallon buckets for collecting maple sap, and make sure to use food-grade buckets. One of our friends found a couple of local sandwich chains that would give away or sell cheap their food-grade pickle buckets.
Blocky
In the other direction, I picked up an 8 pack of husky snap containers for screws but noticed the plastic is stamped food safe and “bpa free”. These have turn out to be my favorite snack containers. Easy to open but never open unintentionally in my bag. The red and black is kinda ugly tho.
skfarmer
oh good lord. afraid to put produce i a non-food grade bucket.
i can see wanting and using using non-food grade buckets for “finish” process of food production such as canning, syrup production, meat cutting, sausage making and the like. i follow that same rule……… but holy cow, most people don’t have a clue about food production.
galvanised steel grain bins, painted wood and steel truck boxes. rusty augers. all of those and more are encounterd with grain. similar things are used with vegatables and fruit production, don’t forget about concrete floors.
how about potatoes, ,onions, beets peanuts, carrots ancd various other produce. i hear those things are in direct contact with…. wait for it……. dirt.
i am not telling you to use any old thing. use the best you can but far more important is properly clean your food, properly process it and properly store it once finished.
filling your homer bucket with green beans potatoes or apples from your garden is likely far more sanitary than who knows whose grubby hands have touched it before or after it hit the store or farmers market.
when we make homemade sausage we use food grade tubs and a stainless steel milk bucket that has been in the family for years, but from there it goes in a cast iron enterprise stuffer, using real pork casings. we all know what used to be in them. we have black pipe and steel rods for hanging and the smoke house is made of wood and looks an aweful lot like an outhouse.
been told it is better than any sausage you can buy but your mileage may vary. i will trade a ring of sausage with anyone who will bring me a homer bucket full of home grown produce and not think twice about it. it’s called common sense.
Stuart
“i am not telling you to use any old thing. use the best you can but far more important is properly clean your food, properly process it and properly store it once finished.”
Properly store it in… food-grade buckets? =)
There’s a ton of misinformation online, with some people inaccurately insisting that HDPE products are all automatically food-grade based on their recycling codes. They’re not. Are Home Depot Homer buckets food-grade? No.
All I’m saying is that if you need a food-grade bucket, you have to source a bucket explicitly advertised and labeled as such.
Do you need a food-grade bucket? That’s for you to determine.
“i will trade a ring of sausage with anyone who will bring me a homer bucket full of home grown produce and not think twice about it. it’s called common sense.”
Okay, what if they used the Homer bucket to make a 3-year fermented hot sauce?
“when we make homemade sausage we use food grade tubs”
This suggests you recognize there are food-grade containers and containers that are not food-grade.
My goal is simply to inform those who are unaware of the distinction. I’ve seen a lot of bad advice out there, where someone will say “oh, well if it says HDPE it’s food-grade.”
I sought to learn more about fermenting vegetables, so I could potentially replicate the pickles my grandfather used to make, and a particular style we used to buy from a now-shuttered pickle shop at an annual fair. There’s a lot of bad advice there too, some of it really, really bad.
“Common sense” is a moving target. It’s one’s best judgement based on background knowledge and facts, but everyone’s familiarity is different.
For me, it might be common sense to wear closed-toe shoes in the workshop, and not to have open beverage cups or containers around when working with chemicals. But I’ll come across tutorial videos online where people obviously didn’t learn the same.
Jerry
I’m with you, Stuart. It is one thing to carry a bucket of potatoes from the garden to the house but another entirely to use it to ferment wine or vinegar.
I have found if you ask someplace like a deli or small restaurant you frequent you can often get food grade buckets free for the taking. Thing like pickles, potato and macaroni salad come in 5 gallon buckets. Some even come in 20 Liter buckets, which are slightly taller.
Al
I thought these used to be supplied by Consolidated Plastics. Their 5-gal HDPE buckets are FDA approved.
Maybe I’ve slipped into a Berenstein universe.
If you have a huge supply of non-virgin buckets you don’t want to waste, pack your foods in food grade sealed pouches or pail liners. I pack rice in heat-sealed Mylar bags, pre-measured. A small pocket of iodized salt is sealed next to it.
Bonnie
Leaktite also makes food grade HDPE buckets, it’s just that their Home Depot buckets aren’t. I expect they’ve probably had to change suppliers at different times and in different markets as well (Home Depot Canada lists them as having a Canadian country of origin, whereas US Home Depot buckets are made in Massachusets).
J. Newell
“real pork casings. we all know what used to be in them” – well, sure, but these are going to be cooked somewhere along the line before being eaten, no?
Ishan
Great question and generally that works with killing bacteria. However, there are compounds that don’t change if heated to cooking temperatures. The simplest would be salts or metal compounds (i.e. table salts, rust, cyanide salts, etc.). Cooking might as well be the “screw it” of retaining original compound chemistry. So, cooking may render harmless compounds harmful, or reverse, or not change anything
Brandon
I have a few Kmart buckets. They’re white…. I should be good, right?
https://c.shld.net/rpx/i/s/i/spin/image/spin_prod_247996401
Stuart
You have to look at the bottom. If it doesn’t say food-grade or similar, or have appropriate symbols or labels, I wouldn’t assume it is.
PETE
Well back in the day… i think everything was considered FOOD GRADE in the kmart days lol
skfarmer
ha, the biggest reason i use food grade tubs is they are sized to fit my needs, store easily and are easy to clean. i have also used coolers and clean buckets. my turn of the century stuffer made of cast iron is by no means. “food grade” if it was used in a modern food processing facility it would get it shut down yet there are probably hundreds of thousand of them in use around the country to this day.
i am in the food production industry. the point i am trying to make is that literally 100% of the food you eat comes from a barn, a field, a garden or an orchard.it grows in the dirt, walks in the mud (or worse) much as it has for all of time.. i sure don’t use any food grade equipmment or storage facilites and don’t know of anyone else who does, food grade is does not come into play until final processing. trust me, i live within 10 miles of several food processing facilities. and food grade does not come into play until far into the process. 2 of them are well known brands that most here would recognise.
do you really think the plastic bag, paper bag or worse yet reusable shopping bag you bring your groceries home in are food grade? yet using a homer bucket to carry produce in is somehow dangerous? how many of those reusable shopping bags lay in the back seat, on the floor or in the trunk exposed to far worse things than in a clean homer bucket ?
no, don’t use chemical containers for food storage and processing or leave your coffee cup exposed when spray paintin. again , i encourage common sense.
i would venture to say that the vast majority of people on this site are far more wreckless with shop safety and far more likely to be injured by it than the the deadly misuse of a homer bucket.
if opinons are allowed those nasty reusable bags i see people carrying around carry far more risk to food safety than a homer bucket. i won’t even get into the nasty shopping carts/baskets that people use every day with little or no thought to the nastiness lurking on and around them.
Stuart
I’m not sure why you keep mentioning carrying produce. That’s a very temporary application.
I see food-grade as being relevant when the differences could be important. Is the difference important when carrying product from a field? What about long-term storage of something?
Again, my point is that there’s a difference. Use the knowledge how you will.
And produce doesn’t grow in dirt, plants grow in soil.
Skfarmer
You say potato, i say…..
We all know the story. The only point i am realy trying prove is that the term food grade gets thrown around as the only thing that should be used around food. When in reality it really isnt a thing until it hits the processed or consumer level.
Anyway, i am about talked out on this. I need to get my cattle fed , check my alfalfa to see if it is dry enough to bale and get back to work on my combine for wheat harvest. Trust me, everything i use is i food grade! Just trying to inform people how it is in the real world of food production.
Scott
Go learn about extractables and leachables skfarmer – not the same as incidental contact you’re describing. Growing vegetables & using chemicals doesn’t make you a chemist or chemical engineer.
Also safer to assume you might not have all the information Stuart spends time meticulously researching from professional chemists than assume common sense is better than expertise. Maybe you’re an expert on farming, and that’s ok. They’re experts on chemistry and E/L.
OldDominionDIYer
Having grown up working on a dairy farm the term “food grade” wasn’t even in our vocabulary. Every reasonable effort was made to ensure cleanliness and some of the dairy inspectors that would periodically come out to do site inspections for certifications were absolutely ridiculous and we all could see the writing on the walls where things were headed. Not saying they’re aren’t some bad actors out there, for sure there are, but no annual inspection will stop them either. I thought if HDPE was labeled 2 it was food grade that is the intention, so if they are not (because of the dye used or something else) they should not carry that label, seems like an error on the MFR’s part to me, either it is or it isn’t there is no in between.
MT
“ I thought if HDPE was labeled 2 it was food grade that is the intention”
No it isn’t. The intention is to tell you what it is so it can be properly recycled. That’s why the 2 is inside the recycling symbol arrows. Nothing to do with whether or not it’s food grade.
Stuart
Exactly.
Food-grade containers can be made from HDPE, but not everything made from HDPE is food-grade.
Boras
I maintain a handful of tankless water heaters that get flushed with vinegar every six months because the water is so hard. When I use a regular bucket a jelly forms that gunks everything up and is a PITA to clean up. But I figured out that when I use a food grade bucket that doesn’t happen. So from my limited experience there is a real difference.
Mopar
The buckets at Tractor Supply are usually about the same price as HomeDepot, and ARE certified food safe. (they are also 70mil, FYI)
They also stock the Gamma Seal lids for only about $1 more than buying online. Those lids are the greatest thing since cordless power tools if you need to get in and out of a sealed bucket a lot.
Boras
Yes the gamma seal lids are great!
Chris Rafter
If you require a food grade 5 gallon bucket, Firehouse Subs sells their red pickle buckets for around $3. Likewise if you go to any sandwich shop and ask, they might give you some for free.
hon cho
Certainly generated a lot of buzz with this post and, since everyone eats, food safety is important. Suckered me in but I’d have rather been reading about some obscure new tool that I might need or, if you’re concerned with your readers’ safety, something on sawstop alternatives or beat first aid kits for the shop. Plastic bucket food safety seems a bit of a stretch for a tool site.
Mopar
For the sake of argument, I have to wonder how much of this simply boils down to legalese and certification?
Is there a difference in the actual composition of food safe vs non food safe HDPE?
Probably not.
My totally uneducated spitballing guess is that most likely it mainly relates to the production environment and cost/requirements to meet whatever legal requirement needed to be certified as food safe. Does the production line need more frequent/special cleaning, inspections or lubricants? Does the manufacturer need to assign and track lot numbers in case a food contamination issue comes up?
I honestly don’t know. It’s probably too far outside the scope of ToolGuyd for Stuart to delve that deep into it.
I also think when it comes to personal use we can assess the risks ourselves.
Someone keeps mentioning “carrying”. I wouldn’t personally be concerned about using a clean Homer bucket while picking veggies in the garden.
Someone else mentioned maple sap collection. No way in hell would I use that same bucket. I wouldn’t even use a cleaned out pickle bucket. It takes roughly 43gal of sap to make 1gal of syrup. So any chemical or flavor contamination is going to be 43 times more concentrated in the final product.
We brine a large turkey every year for Thanksgiving dinner. Every year I run to TSC to buy a clean new food-safe bucket to do it in (I know, I should just mark it and save it, but you can always use another bucket, right?). A few years ago when I went they didnt have any at all, and I didn’t have time to order online or drive all over the state for a $5 bucket, so I admit I grabbed one at HD. Nobody got sick from soaking that bird overnight in a clean homer bucket of brine, but the next year I still went back to TSC for a food-safe one.
Stuart
If you’re making paint buckets, you can potentially use recycled materials with unknown contaminants, materials of unknown or untraced purity, and whatever dyes and colorants you want.
If you’re making buckets for food storage, you can only use pure materials and food-grade dyes and colorants, and likely mold release as well.
Consider purified water in one jug and rainwater in the other. The purified and treated water should be suitable for drinking. The rainwater will not be unless it’s filtered and treated for physical, chemical, and biological contaminants. If you’re rinsing the deck, you can use either water source. If you’re making lemonade, you should only use the drinking water.
Food-grade buckets and containers seem to require specific attention to and analysis of the materials and additives used. Leaktite, the maker of food-grade and non-food-grade buckets, says they have separate production lines, and only the ones produced as food grade are explicitly labeled as such.
Personally, I wouldn’t be too worried about a one-time brining in a cleaned bucket. But I wouldn’t want to set up a multi-year hot sauce ferment in a non-food-grade container.
Mopar
And…
I think I jinxed myself.
We usually buy staples like rice and sugar in bulk at significant savings, and then break them down into smaller quantities and vacuum seal them. Plus, we’re fairly rural, it’s not like you can just run to the store real quick if you need something.
My wife tends to label them and then toss them all in one big bin in the pantry. Well, yesterday I was cooking, and needed more flour. Wife said there is plenty in the bin. There wasn’t. What she thought was flour was actually Bisquick. So, because of this timely post, I figured I would stop at TSC while I was out running errands and buy 3-4 buckets and Gamma Seal lids and organize those things better.
Guess what? Just like that one Thanksgiving, they were all out of the 5gal food-safe buckets, and only had one gamma seal lid. Now yea, I really could use the homer buckets for that, since all the food will also be in sealed packages, but I’d still feel better if they were food safe. Besides that, Home Depot or Lowes would have added another 60-75 minutes of driving.
Oh well.
JR Ramos
Stuart, do you happen to have a .pdf link for those FDA standards or similar? Something free and not behind ASTM paywalls, etc. Just curious.
Couldn’t believe I read through the comments in entirety but it was interesting. I found myself wondering about the criteria for “food safe” and how thorough the standards are. Lots of things like this are quite old and haven’t been revisited in a long time, and we know much more now.
One question is whether ingestion is included for the container materials. Unlikely event, of course, but little snips and slivers, that kind of thing. Kind of like how the food safe greases and oils aren’t expected to be ingested but that’s part of their certification.
I’d say if anyone is concerned and doesn’t want to pay a premium for certified food safe products, consider repackaging them in PET or mylar film bags…those will store better anyway but will also keep offgassing chemicals out and whatever else. I guess that doesn’t work so well for a barrel of pickles, though. 🙂
Stuart
No – they’re a mess to navigate.
I have found specific guidance documents, but no comprehensive set of standards.
Also keep in mind there are NSF guidelines as well.
Food-grade and food-safe are incredibly complicated.
For greases, for instance, there’s H1 and H2.
H1 can be used with incidental contact might be possible.
I have seen some companies call H2 food-grade, but it’s not.
Apparently H2 can be used at food-processing facilities, but not where ANY food contact is possible. So how is that food-grade if it absolutely cannot come into contact with food?
You know how the entire water bottle industry was completely overhauled in recent years, as they moved away from polycarbonate to BPA-free materials?
Polycarbonate is still widely used in food service, most notably clear containers.
HDPE is typically regarded as a very safe plastic, and is found in a lot of food contact surfaces, such as cutting boards.
Ingestion generally is not recommended for most food-grade container materials. If you’re scooping frosting out of a bucket, you should be using a silicone spatula or similar that won’t scratch it up.
I don’t know if food-grade buckets are commonly reused in industry. Plastic tends to absorb a lot of odor and colors and can be a hassle to clean. Other materials, such as stainless steel, is more reusable.
I use polypropylene containers, but for bulk stuff, such as holding whole veggies for prep. If I’m mixing or similar, I use stainless steel or glass.
A glass container might be food-grade, but if it’s chipped it’s unfit for use. If there’s a chance there’s glass in the food, the food should be discarded.
Plastic, I feel, is suited for storage, but not any task where “snips and slivers” could happen. We do use HDPE cutting boards (and others) because they’re easier to sanitize after use with raw chicken and similar.
JR Ramos
Ok…thanks. I might possibly be able to get something from a friend if he has the time and gumption to dig into it. I assumed it was probably not a simple or easily digested thing, like so many standards (fire codes being a great example). Forgot about NSF, too…thank you.
It’s been some years since I looked much but I don’t recall there being much available on HDPE…seems like it was very precursory and mostly an extension of what was learned/assumed about LDPE, which had more studies. I think a lot of these materials only had somewhat precursory attention and most of it was done well before we had the technologies we do now…probably deserves to be revisited. The plasticizers are an excellent example there. (On the note of water bottles…personally having used LDPE Nalgenes way back in the day, I always thought there may be something not-good about them for warm- or longer-term storage. PC was certainly more enjoyable to use and drink from…what a debacle those several years of BPA testing and reporting were, but in the end some truths were revealed where they had been pretty suppressed earlier. I still drink from PC Nalgene bottles every day…not concerned about it for that use and if the water has been in there more than a couple days it gets dumped and refilled. In more recent years we’ve learned that PET is maybe no so safe for medium- to long-term water storage, either.)
Been a long time but for the 5gal buckets (pickle or otherwise) I had heard that they were not allowed to reuse them, hence the freebie stockpiles. Not sure if that was for reasons of surviving sterilization temps or what…or if it was true at all.
David
Menard’s carries good grade buckets that at 90 mil thickness. They also carry Gamma lids.
Mark M.
This is very anecdotal but I use food-grade buckets as chicken feeders outside in the Central Texas sun/heat. The white ones from Lowes (with gamma lids) seem to be far more UV resistant than the orange Homer buckets (my kids use one in a sandbox and it’s gotten faded and brittle over about the same time I’ve had the food-grade ones in service). So for anyone with a long-term outdoor use, they might be worth it for longevity even if the food-safe aspect isn’t as big of a concern.