Specifications in the Glass Industry, with Reference to Soda-Lime Glasses .......

JSGT 1924 V08 T003-T030

 We have had a rather extraordinary case, in which one firm, summoned for selling carbonate of potash with more than the permissible minute traces of lead and arsenic, declared that the potassium carbonate extracted from the glass bottle in which it was stored a considerable quantity both of lead and of arsenic. That case, as some manufacturers know, has given rise to a good deal of correspondence; letters from customers to manufacturers and vice versa dealing with the question as to whether the particular glass each was interested in was free from arsenic and lead. I am quite convinced, in this connection, that, given a glass container of satisfactory general durability, no foodstuff, whether packed moist or in syrup, or again in vinegar or fruit juices, will extract from glass any arsenic capable of detection by most refined measurement, even supposing it to be present in the very small amounts used in making some glasses.

W. E. S. Turner