Plastic Guide

Third-Party Certifications for Plastic Safety

What is LFGB certification?

LFGB is Germany's food-contact safety law. It tests what migrates out of a material (including plastic) into food. The lab adds food simulants for water, acid, alcohol, and oil, into the plastic being tested, then measures what comes out, including heavy metals like lead and cadmium.

Because many products sold in Germany are also sold in other countries, it’s common to see on European products. It’s less common on US products but can be useful for imported goods and brands that sell in multiple countries. It’s OK if something doesn’t have an LFGB certification on it; this is just one potential third party certification that can ensure a plastic is better.

LFGB only applies to food-contact use plastic only, so don’t expect to see it on furniture or other home accessories.

What is EU 10/2011?

EU 10/2011 is the European Union's Plastics Regulation. It’s broader than LFGB because it covers all of the countries in the EU. It's one of the strictest food-contact plastic standards in wide use. LFGB plastic testing effectively operates under it, so the two overlap.

Like LFGB, it’s also only for plastics that touch food.

The Overall Migration Limit caps the total of everything that can leach into food at 60 mg per kg of food. On top of that, individual substances on an approved list carry their own Specific Migration Limits, each set by the European Food Safety Authority based on that substance's toxicity.

Testing simulates real use: the lab picks the food simulant, temperature, and contact time based on how the product is actually used.

What is GREENGUARD Gold, and why isn't it a top-tier plastic certification?

GREENGUARD Gold certifies emissions. It measures the VOC chemicals a product releases into indoor air and confirms they stay below set limits. The certification is absolutely meaningful, but because it doesn't test what additives are actually in the plastic, it’s less useful. A plastic can pass GREENGUARD Gold and still contain plasticizers, flame retardants, or pigments that the certification never looked at. That's why it sits one tier below a migration certification like LFGB or EU 10/2011.

Is Tritan a plastic certification? Is Tritan plastic non-toxic?

Tritan is a copolyester plastic that was designed to compete with BPA-containing polycarbonate plastic right as consumer pressure was mounting. Tritan contains no bisphenols, including BPA and BPS, and meets Prop 65. It's also GREENGUARD certified.

In 2011, two companies published a study claiming Tritan showed estrogenic activity under UV light, sometimes higher than polycarbonate. Eastman sued and won, arguing the two firms had a financial conflict: one sells the testing, the other sells a competing "estrogenic-activity-free" plastic certified by the first. So the main evidence against Tritan came from parties with a direct stake in the outcome.

The strongest safety claims, in turn, come from Eastman's own commissioned testing.

Neither side is neutral. Tritan is most likely safer than polycarbonate because it drops the bisphenols, doesn’t require the Prop 65 warning, and for an occasional-use item it's a small piece of your total exposure.

What is "food grade" plastic?

"Food grade" sounds more official than it is. It is not an FDA certification. The FDA doesn't issue a "food grade" stamp. The phrase is an informal shorthand for a material made from ingredients the FDA permits for food contact. A manufacturer can call a plastic “food grade” because the resin is on an approved list, without any third-party testing of the finished product.

That matters because the approved-ingredient list is all about the base resin, not everything added to it. A plastic can be food grade and still carry plasticizers, stabilizers, flame retardants, or pigments that the food-grade label never speaks to. The label also says nothing about how the product behaves under heat, with fatty or acidic foods, or over time, which are the conditions that actually drive what leaches out.

So "food grade" is a floor, not a guarantee. It tells you the base material is allowed for food contact. It doesn't tell you what migrates out of the finished product in real use. A migration certification like LFGB or EU 10/2011 tests that finished product against food simulants and measures what comes out, which is the question that matters. When you see "food grade" with no migration certification behind it, treat it as a starting point and ask what else is in the material.

Which certifications don't matter much for home plastics?

Some certifications come up on plastics, but don't tell you much:

• NSF certification is mostly a sanitation and equipment-design standard. It checks whether commercial kitchen equipment is cleanable and built to code. Material safety is one piece of it, not the focus. An NSF mark without a standard number is vague, since NSF runs separate standards for plumbing, water treatment, and pool equipment. The food-materials piece is NSF/ANSI 51 specifically.

• "FDA compliant" is not a certification. It means the material is made from FDA-approved ingredients. There's no certificate, no third-party audit, and no required product testing behind the claim. A brand asserts it.

• USP Class VI and ISO 10993 are medical-device standards. They test biocompatibility for materials that may contact or be implanted in the body. If you see them on a kitchen product, it usually just means the manufacturer also sells into medical markets. They're strong standards aimed at the wrong question for home goods.

None of these are red flags. They just don't answer the additive and migration question, so they don't move a plastic up the scale on their own.