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As editor of Plastics News, I scan scores of Web sites, emails and news releases daily, and stay in constant touch with our network of global staff reporters and correspondents -- the largest reporting team in the plastics industry. I distill the more interesting items into commentary for this blog. Plastics News, part of Crain Communications Inc., began publishing weekly news in 1989, and launched a bilingual China site in mid-2005. In 2007, Crain acquired the two leading English-language plastics publications in Europe - Plastics & Rubber Weekly and the monthly European Plastics News.
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  • ED: I would say that baby bibs are a concern if read more
  • Scott: You would be surprised where you will find lead. The read more
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Anatomy of a recall

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A May 2 decision to recall some vinyl baby bibs because they contain lead is generating a lot of headlines. What's interesting to me is how the issue got attention in the first place: a woman in suburban Chicago decide to test her grandson's vinyl-backed bib.

The Arlington Heights, Ill., Daily Herald has a follow-up story today on Marilyn Furer, the grandmother-activist, whose grandson Jensen started the ball rolling:

Jensen would also put the bib in his mouth when he was hungry, something that came to Marilyn Furer’s attention when he started using the vinyl-backed bibs.

It caused Marilyn to think back to reports she had heard of lead being found in plastic school lunch boxes.

“So there I think, hmmm, plastic in the mouth, plastic in school lunch boxes. What the heck, I’ll just go get a (lead testing) kit just to play it safe. I never thought it would come out like that.”

Using a household lead test kit produced by Homax Products Inc., she crushed the two points on the barrel of the testing swab, shook the swab and squeezed it until a yellow liquid appeared on the tip. Then she rubbed the swab tip on the test area. To her surprise, the swab tip turned pink, indicating the presence of lead. She wound up testing 20 bibs, with eight of them yielding a positive result.

She sent the bibs, which were made in China and sold at Wal-Mart, to the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland, Calif., which had done the research on the lunch boxes.

Testing commissioned by the center revealed that one of the Baby Connection brand vinyl bibs, which were sold exclusively at Wal-Mart stores, had a lead level of 9,700 parts per million, more than 16 times greater than the legal limit for lead in paint.

Now Marilyn Furer wants a ban on lead-based products used by infants and children.

The Vinyl Insitute reacted well to this story, putting out a news release yesterday explaining its position.

“Lead does not need to be used in babies’ bibs,” said Tim Burns, president of the Vinyl Institute. “You don’t need lead to make vinyl, and most vinyl products don’t contain lead.”

He added: “This is a lead issue, not a vinyl issue. It appears that although lead may not have been added deliberately, it made its way into products from some environmental or workplace source. It is critical for manufacturers, importers and retailers globally to work together to set and enforce policies to address these concerns.”

As the Daily Herald story notes, the bibs were imported from China. As we've also seen from the melamine/pet food story, new measures are desperately needed to ensure the safety of products being imported into North America.

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We have received a huge number of e-mails from readers and phone calls from clients regarding issues arising from the recent melamine pet food tainting. We not only represent a number of companies involved with China food, we also represent many import... Read More

Comments (2)

You would be surprised where you will find lead. The kits work well when you clean the site properly. Otherwise rust and other heavy metals will cause false negatives and or positives.

www.check4lead.com

ED:

I would say that baby bibs are a concern if there is lead in them because of the amount of contact that they would come into with the baby’s mouth. How many people have actually looked at where lead can be found for example: Ceramic dishes, Mini Blinds, Children’s toys, extension cords and of course the most popular Paint. Currently there are new laws on the books that are dealing with lead paint and renovations in homes that were built prior to 1978. Are you aware that the amount of lead dust that would fit into an artificial sweetener packet can contaminate a space equal to a 10 x 10 area in your home? You as a consumer can now check to see if your house is safe by testing these surfaces.

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