Last week, the liquor plasticizer scandal became a widely followed news event. CCTV's "Weekly Quality Report" reported yesterday that the alcoholic wine company has identified the three possible culprits, one is the small plastic pipe on the automatic packaging line, the second is the plastic bottle stopper, and the third is the temporary plastic wine pipe used during the renovation of the packaging workshop last year. Drunkard said it was deeply sorry for the plasticizer incident and would take measures as soon as possible to improve packaging and eliminate potential plasticizer hazards. At the same time, together with other liquor production enterprises, promote the industry as soon as possible to introduce the liquor industry plasticizer limit standard.

plastic-free equipment in the production line

Where does the plasticizer in liquor come from? What are the hidden dangers in the production of liquor enterprises? In response to these issues of public concern, the Weekly Quality Report reporter was granted exclusive access to the alcoholic distillery to investigate the entire production process.

Liquor brewing mainly includes raw material pretreatment, fermentation, distillation, cellaring, packaging and other production links. In all the exposed parts of the production site, from the production equipment to the wine pipeline, from the fermentation equipment to the storage container, the reporter did not see any plastic materials or equipment. Among them, the sealing cover of the wine jar is wooden, and the thin cotton wool is used to seal between the cover and the jar, rather than the plastic film previously rumored. The reporter saw on the scene that even in the filtration room where the input and output pipelines need to be frequently replaced, the transfer nozzle is also a stainless steel hose.

"Spot check found that the residual amount of plasticizer in wine is high and low, sometimes there is, sometimes there is no, so we are more confused." Said Xia Xinguo, general manager of Hunan Drunkard Liquor Co., LTD.

Problem or out of the packaging line

No problem was found in the base wine, the raw wine after the cellar is no problem, but the raw wine through the packaging line canned, more or less detected plasticizer. Therefore, the enterprise will suspect the eyes locked on the plastic bottle stopper used in the packaging line and the plastic catheter used in the automatic packaging line device.

The bottle stopper inspection report presented by the alcoholic wine company shows that the bottle stopper used by the enterprise is a qualified product according to the relevant standards. However, due to the plasticizer is easier to dissolve in alcohol, the current national standard does not specifically formulate the content standard of plasticizer for plastic products related to the production of liquor. Therefore, the relevant plastic products have not been specifically tested for plasticizers.

During the investigation, many industry experts interviewed by the reporter all agreed that plastic pipes, plastic containers, bottle caps or other plastic packaging materials used by liquor companies may contain plasticizers in the production and storage process, and the likelihood of liquor products being contaminated by plasticizers in this process is relatively high. Experiments have proved that plasticizers are indeed more soluble in ethanol, that is, alcohol.

Through further investigation, the company found that in the old packaging workshop temporarily used during the maintenance of the machine in the new workshop last year, there was a 10-meter-long plastic wine pipe connected to the wine pump. This may be the source of the plasticizer in the finished wine.

lock three suspected culprits

The risk monitoring of the quality supervision department shows that some liquor products, including alcoholic wine, have been detected to contain plasticizers, and preliminary confirmation that these plasticizers come from the production, storage and transportation process of migration or environmental impact.

Alcoholic wine company currently locked the three possible culprits, one is a small plastic pipe on the automatic packaging line, two are plastic bottle stoppers, and one is a 10-meter long plastic wine pipe that was temporarily used last year.

Alcoholic wine company said that it will eliminate the hidden danger of plasticizer pollution as soon as possible in view of the identified reasons, accept social supervision, cooperate with relevant departments to make risk assessment, and jointly with other liquor production enterprises to promote the industry to introduce the liquor industry plasticizer limit standard as soon as possible.

Morning Post reporter Zhang Lu

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