I am currently residing in a communal living arrangement where my meals are provided in a central dining facility. In the drink area they have a very nice selection of cold teas in a fountain drink dispensor. This includes my favorite, regular unsweetened tea. I like my iced tea with lemon. Luckily they have provided lemon wedges. Here is where the question comes.
The drink cups are styrofoam. When I squeeze the lemon wedge into the cup some of the lemon juice hits the sides. I noticed the juice pits the side of the cup. The citric acid is destroying some of the styrofoam. Am I poisoning myself with polystyrene? Is the residue from the cup and acid reaction going into my tea? There is no plastic taste to the drink. Help me before I die a horrible death.
The food at the dining hole at my college seemed to eat into the styrofoam to-go containers a bit. I haven’t died of it yet, and it’s been 10 years (has it really?) since I graduated.
It’s dissolving the material, not reacting with it. The linked page appears to be saying that rather than the plastic going into solution in the drink, the limonene collapses the blown structure of the polystyrene, but remains more or less bound to it.