What is this interface used for?
The FCM interface is used to assess the human and ecotoxicological impacts of chemicals in food contact materials. There are 23 default products currently, including PVC film for pork, PET bottle for water, HIPS cup for yogurt, LDPE bag for rice, cardboard box for rice, HIPS cup for dry soup, etc. The human exposure pathways mainly include direct ingestion of the food in contact with the FCM by the user. For the ecosystem, exposure occurs mainly through FCMs that are disposed to landfill after use, whose chemical components volatilize to air and leach into the freshwater.
How does this interface work?
The FCM interface is divided into two parts. The top part includes the model inputs, where the user enters inputs for the chemical, product, indoor and outdoor environments. The bottom part displays the model results, including exposure and risk results for the product user, as well as the human health impacts for different populations and the ecotoxicological impacts for aquatic organisms.
What are the inputs?
The inputs part has four blocks: Chemical, Product, Indoor settings and Outdoor region. The minimal inputs required from the user include the chemical’s CAS number (choose from a dropdown list), chemical’s mass fraction in the product, the product name (choose from a dropdown list). You can also create your own product or select your indoor scenario.
The name of the indoor environment (by default “OECD countries average 2+1 children household”), and the name of the outdoor region (by default “Default USEtox”). After the user provides these inputs, more information will be automatically displayed, including the chemical name, product characteristics, usage data, and indoor configuration such as house volume, ventilation rate, and occupancy.
To create and use a custom product:
- (1) Click the "+" on row 23 to show the detailed product inputs.
- (2) Enter your custom values in the blue-colored cells from F16 to F34.
- (3) Click the button with blue fonts "Save user-input product".
- (4) Select from a dropdown list in cell E16 (the green-colored cell) the custom product name that you just created.
Inputs
- 1 Chemical
- 2 Product
- 3 Indoor settings
- 4 Outdoor region
What are the results?
The results part has two main sub-sections: Exposure and risk results summary, and Cumulative impact results.
The Exposure & risk results summary presents the exposure in average daily dose for the user through different exposure routes, as well as the estimated cancer risk for cancer effects and hazard quotient for non-cancer effects. Also displayed are the maximum chemical content (MAC), which is the maximum chemical content in product not to exceed cancer risk and HQ targets, and the hazard content ratio (HCR), which shows how many times the actual chemical mass fraction is too high/low to reach the risk targets.
The Cumulative impact results summary presents the human toxicity impacts and the ecotoxicity impacts. For human tox, results include the cancer and non-cancer characterization factors and damage in terms of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 5 populations: user adult, user child, household adult, household child and the general population. For ecotox, results include the characterization factor and damage in terms of Potentially disappeared fraction of freshwater species integrated over exposed volume and time (PDF⋅m³⋅d).
The results part also has one hidden sub-section: Supporting intermediary data. It displays direct transfer fractions to relevant compartments, product intake fractions, chemical’s cancer slope factors and reference doses.
Results
- 1 Exposure & risk results
- 2 Cumulative impact results