Zeng et al. 2023 - disposable food-container metal migration

Zeng et al. (2023) measured fourteen metals and metalloids released from disposable fast-food container products into hot water. The routeable occurrence signal is food-contact-material leachate, not intrinsic food contamination: paper cups, plastic cups, plastic bags, and plastic bowls were filled or contacted with freshly boiled water for 15 min and the resulting leachates were analyzed by ICP-MS. Table 1 reports mean +/- SD concentrations in microgram/L for seven experiments per product type.

Key numbers

Table 1 reports hot-water leachate concentrations as mean +/- SD (microgram/L) for each container type. The semicolon value in the source table is the ratio to the heated-distilled-water control. Chromium is reported as total Cr without Cr-VI speciation; no arsenic or mercury analytes are reported.

The Results text summarizes the overall released-concentration order as Zn > Ba > Fe > Mn > Ni > Cu > Sb > Cr > Se > Be > Pb > Co > V > Cd. Table 2 gives exposure parameters for Chinese age groups, and Tables 3 and 4 model HQ and ELCR values for selected container/population scenarios; those model outputs are source-reported risk calculations, not HMTc occurrence thresholds.

Methods (brief)

The study tested disposable paper cups, plastic cups, plastic bags, and plastic bowls. For each test, 300 mL freshly boiled water was added to the container or bag system and held for 15 min; each container type had seven parallel experiments. Leachates were filtered through a 0.45 micrometer filter, acidified with 3.0% HNO3, and analyzed by ICP-MS (NexION 300). Calibration used a ten-point curve from 0.001 to 50.0 microgram/L; reported recoveries were 92.1%-107.8% and RSD values were <15%.

Implications

This source provides food-contact-material migration evidence for disposable paper and plastic fast-food containers under a hot-water contact condition. The strongest Table 1 signals are Zn and Ba from plastic bags and lower-microgram-per-liter releases of Ni, Mn, Cr, Cu, and other analytes from cups and bowls. The values should route to food-contact packaging or tableware rows and should remain separate from food-commodity occurrence datasets.

Wiki pages this source may touch

• food-packaging-paperboard-cartons
• tableware-plastic-drinkware
• food-packaging-flexible-pouches-films
• food-packaging-plastic-tubs
• beryllium
• vanadium
• nickel
• zinc
• manganese
• cadmium
• chromium
• cobalt
• antimony
• barium
• lead
• iron
• copper
• selenium

Verification notes

• Identity checks before writing found no existing DOI, raw-handle, or cite-key page for 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2023.114797, MFK_heavy-metal-risk-of-disposable-food-containers-o, or zeng2023-disposable-food-containers-metals.
• Table 1 was re-opened from /tmp/hmi-june9-032.txt before drafting. Every concentration in the Key numbers table is transcribed from Table 1; significance markers are omitted, but the source-reported ratio after each semicolon is retained.
• Units preserved: concentrations remain in microgram/L hot-water leachate; no conversion to microgram/kg food or daily intake was performed.
• Speciation: chromium is total Cr; no Cr-VI, arsenic, mercury, methylmercury, or inorganic arsenic values are reported.
• Product routing is broad because the taxonomy snapshot has no exact paper-cups, plastic-cups, plastic-bags, or plastic-bowls product slugs. Existing food-packaging and plastic-drinkware slugs are used, and exact physical forms are kept in matrices:.
• Brand firewall: the source describes an online purchasing channel but no brand-specific values are reported here. Instrument and method vendor names are scientific reproducibility details, not product-brand contamination claims.
• The source’s HQ and ELCR calculations are not treated as HMTc thresholds or consumer guidance; this page records the occurrence/migration values and leaves risk-model interpretation to source-attributed context.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.