Are garbage cans food safe, or made of food grade plastic?
At Mann Lake you can buy two kinds of honey extractors:
Stainless steel
Plastic
The first is more expensive than the second, and the second is waaay more expensive than the third option:
Plastic garbage can
I can add the necessary fittings to make the garbage can look and function like the plastic honey extractor, but would like to know whether there are any garbage cans to avoid? Note that the can won't be used for storage, just processing of honey during the extraction process. Does this make a difference?
Other beekeepers have done this.
A heavy assumption may be that plastic container manufacturers produce both food grade and non-food grade plastic products. The process of switching between these plastics may be expensive to produce the different products may be expensive. As such, it's typically just easier to make all plastics food-grade quality.
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What you want is something that is listed as NSF rated for food storage. I know both Huskie and Rubbermaid Brute containers (10 gal, 20 gal, 32 gal, 55 gal) that are gray, yellow or white have that rating. If you have a restaurant supply store in your area, you could go look around for "ingredient bins" and commercial garbage cans. Just remember, a white Brute bin with lid that slides open and is sold as an "Ingredient Bin" will probably run while the same white Brute bin with a flat lid and sold as a "Garbage Can" will run you closer to .
All plastic is "food safe". The term "food safe" has been much abused in recent years because of a perceived risk of leeching of certain chemical from the plastic into acidic foods, or into hot foods
Actual studies have shown this problem to be below the recognised safe levels, and/or to happen at much higher heat than reported
What is really of concern, is re-usability. Many cheap plastic containers, like garbage containers, are not made to be reused or cleaned in a food safe way. Many are also made from recycled materials and may have containments within them?
The best source of food safe containers is the large drums used for mayonnaise and other sauces. Professional caterers and food outlets usually have stacks of these out the back looking for a good home. A few quick phone calls should locate some
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