1. Is melamine tableware safe to use?Melamine tableware is safe for containing hot or cold food, because it is proven to be Food Grade and is able to withstand up to 120 degrees Celsius. They do not emit hazardous chemicals upon contact with hot or cold substances.2. Have the tableware products from ONYX DESIGNS ™ and SEIV by ONYX ™ been laboratory tested?Yes, the products from ONYX DESIGNS ™ and SEIV by ONYX ™ have undergone laboratory examinations at several independent laboratories and have met the Food Grade criteria.3. Have the products from ONYX DESIGNS ™ and SEIV by ONYX ™ earned SNI certification?Yes, the products from ONYX DESIGNS ™ and SEIV by ONYX ™ have been certified with SNI 7322-2008 in the year 2009.4. Are there any melamine products that do not meet the Food Grade criteria?At present, there are many tableware products in circulation that are not considered Food Grade.They are falsely marked as melamine, offered at Rp.10,000 for every 3 dinner plates. These products are usually made of urea formaldehyde, a non Food Grade raw material used in making electrical appliances, not intended for eating utensils.5. What are the potential threats of using tableware products that do not meet the Food Grade criteria?Tableware products made from non Food Grade materials may release formaldehyde upon contact with hot subtances, contaminating food and having serious health effects. Short-term effects include headaches and possibly vomiting. Long-term effects include cancer because of the formaldehyde content, which is carcinogenic.6. How do you differentiate tableware products made from pure Food Grade melamine from those made of fake melamine?Firstly, is the price factor. Fake melamine dishes usually appear to be thinner and far cheaper than pure melamine dishes. If you encounter so-called melamine products selling for unusually low prices, be skeptical about the purity of the melamine.Secondly, is by doing a fast and easy test, that is by lighting a flame/ small fire under the melamine dish for about 20 seconds. The burning of fake melamine dishes gives off a foul odor and creates an uneven textures with pores, both of which would not occur with pure melamine.7. Besides lighting a flame under the dish, are there any other ways to tell the purity of melamine material? A. Boiling a dish in water for about an hour gives a fake melamine dish a distorted shape. The formaldehyde released has a pungent smell causing eyes to water, which would not occur with pure melamine. B. Steaming rice over a fake melamine plate over a period of time will not only give the plate a distorted shape and a pungent smell, in adition, a yellowish tinge can be seen on the rice due to the release of the formaldehyde from the plate.
