CLEANFOOD
CLEANFOOD aims to establish a comprehensive understanding of the pathways through which microplastics and plastic chemicals (MNPs and PCs) enter the food system, assess their occurrence in food and human samples, and evaluate their potential public health and societal impacts.
Recent reports show micro- and nanoplastics (MNPs) in human tissues, including placenta, blood, lungs, and testicles. However, inconsistent sampling and analytical protocols hinder our understanding. Plastic chemicals (PCs) have been known to be taken up by humans for many decades.
Dietary uptake is one of the main exposure pathways for both MNPs and PCs, while the pathway into food is not always well understood. A polluted environment that is used for food production, is a main contributor to the exposure to both types of pollutants.
A new holistic approach is needed to understand human exposure via food, environmental pathways, and associated risks and impact on the society. Using the food system approach, CLEANFOOD, in collaboration with non-academic partners, will develop analytical tools, contamination tracking workflows, and biomonitoring strategies highly relevant for Norwegian conditions.
CLEANFOOD will measure MNPs and PCs in the environment used to produce Norwegian food, various fresh and packaged Norwegian food produce and food packaging, connect modelled environmental fate information with occurrence data. We will for the first time link human biomonitoring data of MNPs and PCs with dietary habits and health outcomes including well-being.
We will give input to policies as the Plastics Treaty by UNEA, the EU 'farm to fork' strategy, and the “One substance, one assessment” proposal from European Commission as well as the New Green Deal and Norwegian priorities (Green change, N-EPAs Priority list of environmental contaminants). CLEANFOOD supports SDG3, 6, 12, 14 & 15.
Secondary goals:
1.Provide workflows to measure ultratrace concentrations of MNPs and PCs in environemtal, food and human samples
2.Describe the presence of MNPs and PCs in
i) the physical environment used for food production
ii) fresh produce, in packaged food and food packaging
iii) humans and investigate link to the diet
3.Develop and deploy models to forecast the dietary exposure to PCs and MNPs
4.Define the impact of MNPs and PCs on the metabolome and related public health outcomes
5. Investigate how the societal welfare loss and well-being can be attributed to food system contamination by MNPs and PCs
6. Communicate results to regulators, scientists and public
Collaboration partners:
NFR/NIPH project owner. Project leader: Dorthe Herzke
Project leaders at NVI: Christiane Fæste
Collaboration partners:
NIPH, NILU, NIVA, Norwegian Water, Norwegian Packaging Association, Minderoo, Chiron
