Elsevier

Environmental Pollution

Volume 285, 15 September 2021, 117338
Environmental Pollution

Release of inhalable particles and viable microbes to the air during packaging peeling: Emission profiles and mechanisms

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2021.117338Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A lot of inhalable particles can be released from packaging to the air during peeling.

  • Viable package-borne bacteria and fungi can survive the aerosolization caused by peeling.

  • Different microbes can be transferred to air with different flight distances.

  • The release mechanisms of nonbiological and microbial particles are different.

Abstract

Packaging is necessary for preserving and delivering products and has significant impacts on human health and the environment. Particle matter (PM) may be released from packages and transferred to the air during a typical peeling process, but little is known about this package-to-air migration route of particles. Here, we investigated the emission profiles of total and biological particles, and the horizontal and vertical dispersion abilities and community structure of viable microbes released from packaging to the air by peeling. The results revealed that a lot of inhalable particles and viable microbes were released from package to the air in different migration directions, and this migration can be regulated by several factors including package material, effective peeling area, peeling speed and angles, as well as the characteristics of the migrant itself. Dispersal of package-borne viable microbes provides direct evidence that viable microbes, including pathogens, can survive the aerosolization caused by peeling and be transferred to air over different distances while remaining alive. Based on the experimental data and visual proof in movies, we speculate that nonbiological particles are package fibers fractured and released to air by the external peeling force exerted on the package and that microbe dispersal is attributed to surface-borne microbe suspension by vibration caused by the peeling force. This investigation provides new information that aerosolized particles can deliver package-borne substances and viable microbes from packaging to the ambient environment, motivating further studies to characterize the health effects of such aerosolized particles and the geographic migration of microbes via packaging.

Introduction

Packaging is necessary for preserving and delivering products from the point of production to consumption (Liu and Mabury, 2019; Spokas, 2008; Fisher et al., 2019; Vendries et al., 2020). According to the World Packaging Organization (WPO), packaging is widely used for beverages, electronics, food, and other products, with a significant increase in food-related demand in recent years (WPO, 2020). Among all the packaging materials, paper and corrugated paperboard are predominantly used due to the versatility, representing 40% of the packaging market (Pathare and Opara, 2014). Other common packaging materials include plastic, glass, and metal (Hernandez et al., 2019; Kovacec et al., 2011; Deshwal and Panjagari, 2020). After a single use or multiple uses, most packaging materials are disposed of and become solid waste, thereby increasing land occupation (Vendries et al., 2020). For example, the USA alone was reported to generate 78 million tons of packaging waste in 2015, contributing approximately 30% of the total municipal solid waste generated in that year (U.S. EPA, 2018). Moreover, the whole packaging life cycle, including production, usage and disposal, has significant impacts on global warming, e.g., the total amount of CO2 emissions generated by the packaging delivery industry in China was estimated to be 1.19 E +6.0t CO2 in 2015 (Fan et al., 2017). Overall, packaging has been attracting increasing attention from the government, public and industry because of its important effects on the climate, the environment and human health (Pace and Hartman, 2010; Cózar et al., 2014; Kang et al., 2020).

The migration of substances from packaging materials to their surroundings has been reported along with the potential adverse human health effects (Begley et al., 2005; Sinclair et al., 2007; Susmann et al., 2019). For example, extensive studies have demonstrated the migration of polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) from paperboard packaging into foods and further into human blood through dietary consumption (Susmann et al., 2019; Halldorsson et al., 2008). Notably, long-chain PFASs such as perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS), which have been found to persist in human blood for many years (Grandjean et al., 2012; Barry et al., 2013; Olsen et al., 2007), can lead to immunotoxicity, altered thyroid function and even cancer (Wolf et al., 2007; Gallart-Ayala et al., 2011). Schecter et al. measured polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) in food using isotope dilution method and found that some butter in the United States was contaminated by PBDEs (Schecter et al., 2011). Hernandez et al. also found that almost 11.6 billion microplastic particles and 3.1 billion nanoplastic particles were released into beverages after steeping a single plastic teabag at a brewing temperature of 95 °C (Hernandez et al., 2019). The migration of other compounds, including thermal stabilizers, slip additives from plastic packaging, and tin, lead and chromium from metal packaging, into foods or other products has also been observed (Yan et al., 2017; Arvanitoyannis and Bosnea, 2004; Boogaard et al., 2003; Skrzydlewska et al., 2003). These previous studies clearly demonstrated the importance of characterizing the effects of packaging-related chemical migration on the environment and human health.

In addition to the well-known packaging-to-food migration route, packaging-to-air migration might also be important and can affect the air quality of both the airspace between packaging and the products and of the ambient environment. Previous report found that chemicals such as PFOA vaporized into the air from packaging materials upon heating (Sinclair et al., 2007). However, important knowledge gaps remain concerning the packaging-to-air migration route and its effects on ambient air quality. Aerosol particles, especially inhalable particles, may be released from packaging and transferred to the air. To the best of our knowledge, no work has yet been published that investigates such migration profiles and mechanisms for particles. The poorly understood packaging-to-air release of particle matter, if not found to be impossible, will provide a new and valuable reference for characterizing aerosol sources, especially for the packaging industry employees, and better assessing personal exposure, which is particularly important, as people rely heavily on packaging in daily life, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak (China NBS, 2020).

The objective of this research is to investigate whether and how packaging-borne substances are transferred to the air through aerosolization by mimicking a simple but typical tape-package peeling process at room temperature. Considering that packages might be effective carriers of microbes (Brandwein et al., 2016), investigating the potential migration of microbes from packages to air and their viability after aerosolization is meaningful and novel and can be used to estimate potential packaging-related microbe dispersion. Therefore, in this work, we investigated both total and biological aerosol dispersion from tape-packaging peeling activities. Briefly, size-resolved total and fluorescent biological particle concentrations were monitored online and recorded with particle sizers with and without peeling exposure. Then, particle emission rates were calculated using a time-integrated balance model. The presence, dispersion and viability of package-borne microbes released into the air were also investigated. Finally, the morphological and chemical characteristics and regulating factors of the generated aerosols as well as their migration mechanisms were assessed. This work aims to provide evidence of the packaging-to-air migration of inhalable particles and viable microbes as a result of peeling.

Section snippets

Experimental setup

This work was conducted in a cylinder chamber on the surface of a quartz table in a 45-m3 experimental room at Shandong University Qingdao Campus from April to June both in 2019 and 2020 (see Fig. 1). The volume of chamber was about 3.5 m3, with a radius of 1.1 m and a height of 1.0 m. Dry-bulb temperatures typically ranged from 20 to 25 °C and the relative humidity (RH) from 65% to 75% during all the experiments. The air exchange rate (AER) was determined by means of carbon dioxide (CO2)

PM monitoring during packaging peeling

The average total particle concentrations in the presence and absence of packaging peeling are presented in Fig. 3 and S1-S3. As seen in the figures, the inhalable supermicron PM concentration was increased significantly by packaging peeling activity (all p-values<0.05), which is consistent with the expectations that particles could be released from packaging surfaces into the air because the external peeling force exerted on the packaging was stronger than the bonding forces. Regardless of the

Conclusions

Overall, this work demonstrates three very new and important conclusions. First, when subjected to peeling, packaging can release a considerable number of nonbiological and biological particles into the air. Second, viable package-borne bacteria and fungi can survive the aerosolization caused by peeling and can reproduce under suitable conditions. In addition, different microbes can be transferred to air with different vertical and horizontal flight distances while remaining alive, which would

Summary of the main finding

During packaging peeling, a lot of nonbiological particles and viable microbes can be released into air in different preferred directions, which were due to different forces.

Author statement

Ruining Han: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Chenglin Yu: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Xuening Tang: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology. Song Yu: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology. Fangxia Shen: Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing – original draft. Pingqing Fu: Supervision, Writing – review & editing. Wei Hu: Supervision, Writing – review &

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41705126 and 21876101), the Major Program of Shandong Province Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 2019GSF107071 and 2019RKE27003), and Youth Innovation Program of Universities in Shandong Province (Grant No. 2019KJD007).

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    This paper has been recommended for acceptance by Pavlos Kassomenos.

    1

    C. Y. and R. H. contributed equally to the work.

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