Exposure Assessment of Typical Toxic Substances in Different Plastic Tableware Sets
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Abstract:
The risk levels of different plastic tableware sets exposed to humans were evaluated by establishing an exposure assessment model. Taking the commonly used polystyrene, polypropylene, melamine and polyethylene plastic tableware sets as the objects, the typical toxic substances in tableware were divided into five categories. Then the risk transfer path was constructed based on the interpretative structural model, and the exposure assessment model was further established based on the three stages of the risk transfer path. Finally, the model was programmed by MATLAB software. The real applications showed that four types of plastic tableware sets were ranked according to the total hazard index of toxic substances: polystyrene (2.24E+00) > melamine (6.94E-01) > polypropylene (2.98E-01) > polyethylene (2.66E-01), and the polystyrene tableware had an unacceptable exposure risk level to the human body (the acceptable risk value was determined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as 1.00). The total hazard index of the tableware in contact with greasy foods was the highest (2.62E+00), which was about 6.30, 2.63 and 5.72 times that of water-based, acidic and alcoholic foods. Among them, the polystyrene tableware had an unacceptable exposure risk to the human body when it came into contact with greasy foods. In addition, food storage cycle and microwave heating time were positively correlated with the exposure risk of tableware to the human body, and they may pose an unacceptable risk to the human body in some cases. These results show that some plastic tableware meeting the standard may have an unacceptable exposure risk to the human body, and the risk is also related to the type of food and consumer's tableware usage habits (storage cycle and microwave heating preference).
