Document ID: chunk:federal_register_of_legislation:F2013C00288:reg:2:p3
Version: federal_register_of_legislation:F2013C00288
Segment Type: reg
Provision Reference: reg 2 (pt 3/6)
Character Range: 2406844–2410159

(mg/kg produce fresh weight per mg/kg soil)
Green vegetables                                                             0.204              calculated
Root vegetables                                                              0.307              calculated
Tuber vegetables                                                             0.244              calculated
Tree fruit                                                                   0.00098            calculated

It is noted that plants can metabolise phenol readily, hence exposure through eating food derived from plants grown in phenol-containing soil is probably minimal and the above is likely to be conservative.

    2.3.5         Intakes from Other Sources – Background
Background intakes of phenol were estimated in the supporting documentation for the current HIL (Turczynowicz, 1993). Due to the lack of available data, the quantification of intakes was limited, hence intake from contaminated soil was taken to be 25% of the adopted ADI to address these limitations.

No data is available on potential intakes of phenol in Australia from food, water, consumer products and air. Estimates of background intakes by RIVM (2001) suggest intake may be dominated by inhalation exposures and background intakes may comprise 1 µg/kg/day. A more detailed review of background intakes by UK (UK EA 2009) considered intakes from food (dominated by the use of phenol as a flavouring additive), water (insignificant compared with food intakes), air and consumer products where the total intake was estimated to be approximately 390 µg/day (350 µg/day from oral sources and 40 µg/day from inhalation sources) or 5.5 µg/kg/day for a 70 kg adult. These are higher than estimated by Health Canada (2000) where intakes by young children (0.54 years) were estimated to be 0.270.66 µg/kg/day; these are more consistent with intakes estimated by RIVM (2001).

If the more conservative estimates of background intakes available from the UK (UK EA 2009) were considered, for a child these would comprise approximately 10% of the recommended oral TRV and 25% of the recommended inhalation TRV. A conservative assumption that background intakes comprise approximately 30% (with rounding) of the TRV can be assumed.

2.4              Identification of Toxicity Reference Values

    2.4.1         Classification
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC 1999) has classified phenol as Group 3—not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity.

It is also noted that US EPA (last reviewed in 2002) has classified phenol as Group D—not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity.

    2.4.2         Review of Available Values/Information
Notwithstanding the above, data on carcinogenicity of phenol is inconclusive. For example, RIVM (2001) report that studies in experimental animals suggest phenol can act as a tumour promoter. Further, ATSDR (2008) noted that 'under certain conditions, especially at high doses, phenol has the potential to be genotoxic. However at the exposure levels likely to occur near hazardous waste sites, phenol is not anticipated to be genotoxic.' Hence phenol (at least at concentrations expected at contaminated site) is not considered genotoxic. On the basis of the available information, it is considered appropriate that a threshold