Toxicological exposure to phthalates mixtures and human health risk assessment of drinking water and fruit drinks packaged in plastics and tetra pak cartons

Background This study estimates the migration and levels of phthalate esters in drinking water and fruit drinks packed in plastics and tetra pak cartons that are regularly available for consumption in Nigeria. The probable human health risk from the long-term consistent ingestion of the drinking water and fruit drinks products were also investigated. Results Nine (9) phthalates were detected in the analyzed samples and they all showed varying concentrations. The results showed that the total mean concentration of the analyzed phthalates in the drinking water and fruit drinks packed in plastic container were found with the range of 1740–2370 µg/L and 1340–2220 µg/L respectively while fruit drinks packed in tetra pak container showed comparatively low concentration range of 385–450 µg/L. Also, the health hazard (HQ) values for the exposure via oral ingestion by adults were recorded at 505.974, 390.353 and 64.161 respectively for water and, fruit drinks packed in plastics and tetra pak containers. Correspondingly, very high values of HQ were observed in children (2529.80, 2187.39 and 355.92). The overall carcinogenic risks estimated owing to oral ingestion in adults were 0.01, 0.02 and 3.3 × 10 –4 for drinking water and fruit drinks packaged with plastics and tetra pak container respectively while higher carcinogenic (CR) values of 0.04, 0.08 and 0.02 were observed in children. Conclusions The result obtained showed comparatively low concentrations of phthalates in fruits drinks packaged in Tetra Pak cartons than drinking water and fruit drinks in plastics containers. The high values of hazard index (HI) and CR observed in drinking water and fruit drink packaged in plastics is an indication of future health challenges relating to carcinogenic effects on the favorite consumer of the drinks in which children are more vulnerable. In view of this, packages like tetra pak product and less toxic materials could be adopted for packing drinking water and fruit drinks to avoid exposing consumers to phthalates present in plastics containers which have attendant negative health effect.