The estimation of exposure to food packaging material.1. The development of a food packaging database

Edel Duffy (1) , Aine Hearty (2) , Mary Gilsenan (3) , Michael Gibney (3)

1 Clinical Medicine
2 Clinical Medicine
3 Clinical Medicine

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 children aged 5-12 years as part of a national children's food survey 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. This database was created in Microsoft Access®, and stored information on the brand of the food, the packaging type, the unit weight, the contact layer, the EU food type (i.e. aqueous, acidic, alcoholic or fatty) and other relevant parameters. Of the 5551 different brand foods consumed by children in the food survey, packaging information was collected on 3441 (62%). As some brand foods had different unit weights and packaging formats there was duplication of some brand foods in the database to account for this. Therefore, there were a total of 3672 packaging entries in the database. Of these plastic was the most common packaging contact layer (n=2874, 78.3%). Multimaterial multilayers with a plastic contact layer accounted for 459 (12.5%) entries. Polyethylene was the most frequently used contact layer (n=941) with polypropylene a close second (n=809). This database is unique in Europe for the quality and amount of food packaging information it contains and could be used to develop packaging use factors for a more refined exposure assessment to food packaging materials in the EU.

Mots clés: Life Sciences

Edel Duffy, Aine Hearty, Mary Gilsenan, Michael Gibney. The estimation of exposure to food packaging material.1. The development of a food packaging database. Food Additives and Contaminants, 2006, 23 (06), pp.623-633. ⟨10.1080/02652030600627214⟩. ⟨hal-00577592⟩