Estimation of exposure to food packaging migrants in a sample of Irish children

Abstract

Food packaging materials are not inert and transfer chemicals, known as migrants, into food. As the presence of chemicals in foods is a highly regulated area, food packaging migrants must undergo a risk assessment procedure before their use is permitted in food packaging materials. Exposure assessments are an integral part of this risk assessment process. The aim of this thesis was to improve the exposure assessment of food packaging migrants by collecting relevant data and applying more sophisticated techniques to refine the exposure assessment methodology. A food packaging database was developed to provide qualitative information on the types of packaging materials used for foods. Packaging information was collected from a sample of 594 Irish children aged 5-12 years as part of the National Children’s Food Survey (NCFS) carried out in Ireland during 2003-2004. All of the food packaging collected during this survey was forwarded to the coordinating centre for further analysis and entry into the Irish Food Packaging Database. Of the 5551 different brand foods consumed by children in the food survey, packaging information was collected on 3441 (62%). Plastic was the most common packaging material used for foods in the database (n=2874, 78.3%). Of which polyethylene was the most frequently used polymer (n=941), with polypropylene a close second (n=809).