Characterization of inorganic components in plastic materials

Plastic products may contain high levels of trace elements, which, upon fin al incineration, may affect the environment. In the case of packing materia l, may affect food quality. In this work, instrumental neutron activation a nalysis was applied to the determination of As, Ba, Br, Cd, Co, Cr, Fe, Sb, Sc, Se, Ti and Zn in plastic materials originated from household and hospi tal wastes. Toxic elements such as Cd and Sb were found at the levels of mg .kg(-1) in some food containers and also high levels of Ti were found in op aque packages. The accuracy and the precision of results were also evaluate d by interlaboratory comparison.