If you are concerned about your personal environment, you may wonder what potentially harmful items are in my home? What harmful toxic elements are present? Making our personal environment safe is the ultimate goal of ESSCO – Safety Check.
Over the past two-years Environmental Services & Solutions Corporation (ESSCO) has preformed thousands of tests on consumer products for families and businesses using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) Analyzers, specifically looking for heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, arsenic and mercury. While providing these testing services to moms and dads, toy stores, manufacturers, importers and industries, we collected data.
Our data includes what type of product it is, if the product is new or used, what surface coating or substrate is present, and how the product is utilized. Now we want to share this data to help inform the public of what is in their personal environment.
We know that consumer products contain a wide variety of heavy metals. Here is data from 8000 tests of consumer products:
1. Total lead content over 300 parts per million (PPM) which is the current federal regulation for children’s products, in 6.81% of all tests.
2. Cadmium content over 40 PPM (a level that was part of the Washington State Children’s Safe Products Act) was found in 3.64% of all tests.
3. In general, used products versus new products were found to contain higher quantities of lead (10.15% v. 4.42%) and children’s products were found to have below average levels of total lead content (4.05% over 300 PPM).
4. However 16.27% of mouthable products (products that children put in their mouths) were found to contain lead in excess of 300 PPM.
5. Of all defined substrates: Ceramics were found to contain lead and cadmium most often. 31.02% of tests on ceramics were found with lead in excess of 300 PPM and 12.03% with cadmium above 40 PPM.
It appears that the products we cook with, eat off of, drink out of and wear have more metals than the average toy. Although toys have a more direct relationship to children, children can still be exposed to potentially harmful metals in everyday consumer products found around the home, especially in the kitchen.
Knowledge is the key, know what is in your environment and mitigate potential harm.
[...] that in each and every home with autistic children (that I have been to and provided XRF testing), I find the same metals in the consumer products that are used around the home, by the children, that the parents have informed me are in the children’s [...]
Pingback by Families with autistic children appear to be more aware of their environment « Essco Safety Check — November 24, 2009 @ 10:17 am
[...] Consumer products do contain a variety of elements and some of these elements are potentially harmful. Particular elements are regulated for products designed and marketed to children 12 and under, as well as other safety standards. Certain products that I have discussed including children’s jewelry and painted items have further requirements for testing including certification and specific testing methods. [...]
Pingback by Not intended for children 12 and under « Essco Safety Check — December 30, 2009 @ 12:20 pm
[...] Data that I have collected from over 8000 test results using XRF analyzers shows that of all consumer products tested only 16.3% are found with any amount of lead, 4.3% are found with cadmium and 11.1% are identified to be made of PVC. In total only 31.7% of all consumer products I have tested using XRF analyzers have been found with lead, cadmium or PVC, yet all products are required to be tested destructively. [...]
Pingback by The Potential Economic Impact of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act « Essco Safety Check — January 22, 2010 @ 1:23 pm
[...] The information is only about consumer products and was collected by using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) analyzers to look for a variety of heavy metals by using X-Rays to determine if elements are present or not present in virtually anything. Over 8000 test results have been compiled. [...]
Pingback by Cadmium found in jewelry and other consumer products « Essco Safety Check — February 12, 2010 @ 10:49 am
[...] was supplied to the AP by Essco Safety Check. In October of 2009, Essco Safety Check presented data on consumer products and how much lead and cadmium were found in toys, ceramics, jewelry and ot… at the Northwest Children’s Environmental Health Forum. This data had been collected with our [...]
Pingback by Another recall: Children’s jewelry contains high levels of cadmium « Essco Safety Check – Know what's in your environment — May 11, 2010 @ 1:15 pm