Adulteration of pharmaceutical packaging containers with postconsumer recycled plastic materials was
considerably difficult to identify due to the similar chemical compositions of virgin and recycled plastics.
In the present study, near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy coupled with conformity test was proposed to
screen the adulteration of pharmaceutical packaging containers. Two kinds of representative screening
models were investigated on polypropylene (PP) bottles for oral drug package. The reliability of the
screening models was validated through studying the identification reliability, specificity, and robustness
of the methods. The minimum spiking level of two modeled adulterants at the proportion of 20% could
be detected, and the unqualified sample from a domestic manufacturer was rejected by this developed
method. This strategy represents a rapid and promising analytical method for screening the adulteration
of pharmaceutical plastic packaging containers with postconsumer recycled plastics.