SPI Code "7 - Other" - What does it mean?

Ingeo™ natural plastic and NatureWorks® biopolymer are trade names for polylactic acid or PLA, manufactured by NatureWorks LLC. NatureWorks® biopolymer is made from lactic acid, a naturally occurring compound found in food and the human body. Lactic acid is made from natural plant sugars (dextrose) by fermentation. The dextrose used to produce NatureWorks® biopolymer is processed at a Cargill wet mill facility from corn grown by farmers who live near Blair, Nebraska.

NatureWorks® biopolymer, when it leaves our factory gate, does not contain and has never contained, Bisphenol A (“BPA”). In addition, NatureWorks LLC does not use and has never used any amount of BPA during the manufacture of NatureWorks® biopolymer.

To facilitate correct plastic waste sorting of bottles and containers commonly found in the residential waste stream for the purpose of recycling, the SPI Resin Identification Symbol System was created by the Society of Plastics Industry (“SPI”) in 1988. SPI “chasing arrows” recycling codes typically appear on the bottom of a plastic packaging article and are used to indicate the type of plastic from which the article is made. At the time SPI codes one through six were developed, the overwhelming majority of plastic packaging was made from one of six resins: Polyethylene Teraphthalate (PET or PETE), High Density Polyethylene (HDPE), Vinyl (polyvinyl chloride or PVC), Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), and Polystyrene (PS). SPI developed the code “7-OTHER” for articles made from plastics that did not fall within one of the six original resin categories.

As the plastic industry has evolved, many new plastics have been invented. The generic SPI code “7-OTHER” applies to a number of these new plastics, including NatureWorks® biopolymer, as well as other bioplastics and natural plastics.

Polycarbonate (PC) is a newer petroleum based plastic, which also is labeled with the generic SPI code of “7-Other”. We understand that polycarbonate may contain BPA. NatureWorks® biopolymer is a different material than polycarbonate. Many articles made from NatureWorks® biopolymer are also labeled by their manufacturers as “PLA” “NatureWorks”, “Ingeo” or “compostable”. These markings can be used to distinguish NatureWorks® biopolymer articles from those made of polycarbonate.

The SPI resin categories are intended to indicate resin content for the purpose of facilitating recycling and sorting efforts. They were never intended to be, and are not, an indicator of product safety. It is absolutely incorrect to assume that because a container is marked “7-Other”, the article is made of a particular material or includes a particular chemical such as BPA, because a number of different resins with very different properties and composition, fall within the catch-all category of “7-OTHER”. The SPI code “7-OTHER” should not be used to determine whether an article is safe or unsafe both because the code was not designed for that purpose and because the code cannot be used as a means to determine the particular type of plastic that was used to manufacture the article bearing the code.

Plastic Coding Guidelines in the United States