”Made in China” Ping.
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Posted on 09/10/2007 6:44:40 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
(SHANGHAI) - ......But the question remains: Why is lead paint - or lead for that matter - turning up in so many recalls involving goods made in China?
The simplest answer, experts and toy companies here say, is price. Paint with higher levels of lead often costs a third as much as paint with low levels of lead. So Chinese factory owners, trying to eke out a profit in an intensely competitive but poorly regulated market, sometimes cut corners and use the cheaper paint.
On the books, China's paint standards are stricter than those in the United States, requiring that paint intended for household or consumer-product use contain no more than 90 parts of lead per million. By comparison, U.S. regulations allow 600 parts per million.
Those regulations are supposed to safeguard health, particularly in children, as ingesting lead has been linked to everything from the retardation of physical and mental development to behavioral problems.
But enforcement of the regulations in China is lax.
"The standard doesn't matter," says Scott Clark, a professor of environmental health at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio.
Clark and a team of investigators randomly sampled paint supplies in Shanghai and other parts of China in recent years, and in about 37 percent of the cases, they said, the paint met neither American nor Chinese standards. Even goods at high-end shopping malls in Shanghai contained unacceptable levels of lead.
But Clark also said China was not alone in producing tainted goods.
"We also looked at India, Malaysia and Singapore, and only Singapore met the requirements," he said......
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
You also get better colors with lead paint that last longer.
Lesson:
If one’s greedy materialism demands many possessions at a very low price, eventually the suppliers will use unethical business practices and lower the
quality, in order to provide the goods at the price we want them.
Don’t look at the Chinese.
Look at your selves.
Lead stolen from church roofs to ship to China
Google "lead theft" or "lead stolen" for countless articles. Probably not directly related, but China is desperate to get more lead. Hmm.
Well, here’s another one to watch out for: that bright yellow paint? Could contain high levels of chromium. Something to think about.
My dad and I used to make lead sinkers when I was a kid. Melted the lead outside and poured it into a mold. And I’m not nearly as retarded as I seem.
How things change. As a teenager I was always told to "get the lead out" and now there's a shortage of it. Guess I over-did it.
And now lead shot is running $40+ for a 25# bag. Aaarrrrggghhh!
I would be more worried about cadmium, and it's in common use.
Does anyone know about the paints used on dishware products?
Ceramic paints can have lead too.
My three year old went to play with his Thomas trains today and immediately noticed that certain small parts were missing. He demanded to know why and we had to tell him about the unsafe paint and how we sent the parts back to get new ones. The turnaround time is supposed to be a few weeks. Kids shouldn’t have to deal with stuff like this. It’s a hassle for everybody.
What about the metals in eating utensils?
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Clean and bright colors. Those pigments would be cadmium red, chrome yellow, and molybdate orange.
The lead free versions of these are expensive and have low opacity.
And .45 cowboy ammo is $28! Aaaaargh!
Start a company or web site to certify items as: "CHINA FREE" like they did with "DOLPHIN SAFE" tuna.
Or like purchasing "CARBON OFFSET CREDITS".
That is what waste radioactive slag is for.
Back in high school chemistry class in the late 50's our teacher demonstrated a Geiger counter and one of the test samples was a reddish-brown ceramic plate, and it sent the Geiger counter off the scale.
I am told that you can still buy these ceramics and they're still radio-active.
Eating utensils are fine, it’s heavy metals that pose the risk.
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