Bio: Dr. Chaniphun Butyree, Associate Professor at the Mahidol University, Thailand. She heads the Thailand Risk Assessment Centre (TRAC) and conducts extensive risk assessment projects with the Thai Food and Drug Administration. She has been assigned as the main person-in-charged for the safety assessment of recycled plastics and novel foods for the national project in Thailand. She obtained her Ph.D. (Nutrition) at Mahidol University, Thailand.

Abstract: The safety assessment guidelines of recycled PET (rPET) considered the efficient recycling process of PET to produce food packaging. The Consumption Factor (CF) of the rPET, is a main factor to identify the maximum contaminant concentration of rPET. The CF at the level of 0.3894 was determined by conducting the cross-sectional study in 1,746 Thai individuals aged 17-60 years using the 24-hour dietary recall in the weight ratio of the daily diet expected to contact PET packaging to the weight of all food packaged. A CF of 0.0974 rather than 0.3894 has been used in estimation exposure since up to 25% of rPET will be used in the finished article. Accordingly, the CF of 0.0974 and fT of 1.0 could be used to calculate the maximum contaminant concentration of rPET to be at the level of 210 ppb by assuming that an individual consumes 3 kg of food per day and a PET density of 1.31 g/cm3 with a thickness of 0.29 mm. For considering the efficiency of PET recycling, the surrogate contaminants testing should be included by using the simulation of various chemical contaminants. Each contaminant should not exceed the maximum limit of 210 ppb. Finally, if the proposed recycling process cannot be shown to remove contaminations to meet the maximum acceptable contaminant levels under the proposed use, then additional factors of the surrogate migration testing using a mathematical model or limitations on use may be justified.