Interim storage of food in aluminium bins

Hi all,

We currently store our mixed powdered blend into aluminum bins (1 tonne capacity). 

Received some refurbished bins recently. Upon inspection, the inside of the bins appears to be oxidised, with small holes along them. Due to the size of the bins, finding it difficult to source a vendor who can anodise them. The main risk in using these bins have been identified as potential hand up points for powder build up. And since these bins do not have CIP in place and just gets washed from the top (hard to reach along the inside). We can also do swabs for the micro load. Are there any physical risks in exposing product to oxidised aluminum please? Feel a bit out of my depth here. Thank you! 

It will depend somewhat on the chemistry of your product.  Extreme pH's will leech metal.

In most cases aluminum oxidizes nearly instantly when exposed to air, and if not finished in some other way every piece of aluminum you've seen or interacted with was already oxidized.  So if your previous containers were also aluminum I wouldn't expect this to be a significant change.

What may be more of an issue is the pitting or other surface marks.  You could probably have them polished smooth as a refurbishment to eliminate these problems.  If there was some kind of reactive corrosion other than the usual oxidization, this kind of polishing would probably also remove that.

I'd agree with GM above that the main concern is the pitting and corrosion marks you mentioned. These can serve as difficult to clean areas in a tote that already sounds hard to clean. Or at worst, depending on the state of corrosion you could have metal getting into your product as the totes deteriorate. I would be wary of using these damaged totes personally, is there any reason why you're using these specifically? Longer term you may look into switching to stainless steel or plastic. The damaged aluminum totes may even have some resale value due to the metal itself.