Dietary Exposure to POPs
Human exposure to POPs through dietary intake was estimated based on measurements of the level of contamination of POPs in various types of foods and information on daily diets of the local population.
Contamination levels of POPs in locally consumed foods are monitored by the Centre for Food Safety of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department under a routine food surveillance programme. The Government Laboratory analyses the levels of POPs contamination of the collected food samples.
According to the 2023 study, dietary exposure of local residents to dioxins/furans and dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) was estimated to be 14.44 pg TEQ/kg bw/month1 (assuming negligible intake via drinking water route), a value well below the Provisional Tolerable Monthly Intake of 70 pg TEQ/kg bw/month set by the Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations / World Health Organization Expert Committee on Food Additives. Dietary intake was the major route, accounting for 99.2% of total exposure of local residents to dioxins/furans and dioxin-like PCBs.
Results of human health risk assessment indicated that there was no unacceptable inhalation or dietary chronic/carcinogenic risk associated with a lifetime exposure of local residents to the current levels of POPs contamination in the local environment and locally consumed foods.
Levels of POPs in the local marine biota were found to be well below national Food Safety Standards/Action Levels of the Mainland China as well as those of the United States of America and the European Commission.
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1 pg TEQ/kg bw/month = picogram toxicity equivalent per kilogram body weight per month
