Lead in Lunchboxes

What is the Issue?

In late August 2005, the Center for Environmental Health (CEH), with which Generation Green has formed a strategic partnerhip, announced it was filing lawsuits against makers and retailers of soft vinyl lunch boxes that can expose children to harmful levels of lead. The Center has also notified several other companies of violations under California's toxics law Proposition 65 (Prop 65) for lunch boxes with high lead levels. The lawsuits and violation notices against companies including Toys "R" Us, Warner Brothers, DC Comics, Time Warner, Walgreens, and others involve many lunch boxes featuring beloved children's characters including Superman, Tweety Bird, Powerpuff Girls, and Hamtaro. The level of lead in one lunch box, an Angela Anaconda box made by Targus International, tested at 56,400 parts per million (ppm) of lead, more than 90 times the 600 ppm legal limit for lead in paint in children's products.

What Can Be Done?

"Parents may need to seek out alternatives, since many mass produced lunch boxes are vinyl or vinyl-lined," says Michael Green, CEH Executive Director. "A reusable cloth bag would be a good alternative."

Parents can find information on how to test for lead in their children's lunch boxes at home at www.cehca.org/lunchboxes.htm, as well as see photos of the lunchboxes known to have high lead levels thus far.

CEH has only tested soft plastic lunch boxes thus far, and doesn't know whether lead may be present in hard plastic or metal boxes at this time. In most cases the lead is in the plastic lining of the box, although some also have lead in the exterior plastic. Products brands that have tested positive include Generation Sports, Loony Tunes, Frozn/Ingear, Roundhouse/Targus, Crayola, American Studio, Igloo, Sanford, Fast Forward, Arizona Jean Company, JC Penny, Lisa Frank and BVS Entertainment/Animations Brand/Accessory Network. CEH's investigation and testing by an independent lab commissioned by CEH is ongoing.

Other Facts and Information

• Lead is known to be harmful to children even in minute amounts, as it can impair brain development and cause other behavioral and developmental problems. Children may be exposed to lead from lunch boxes when they eat food that has been stored in them.
• The majority of the more than 100 lunchboxes that CEH had tested do not contain lead, so there is a good chance that your lunch box may be safe. However, because it is not easy to tell by sight, at this point the only way to know for sure is to test the lunch box yourself. You can test vinyl lunch boxes using a hand-held lead testing kit, available at most hardware stores. Two reliable and easy-to-use brands are PACE's Lead Alert (also available by calling 1-800-884-6073) and LeadCheck (also available online at www.leadcheck.com).
• The levels CEH found in the lunch boxes are not high enough to cause acute lead poisoning during normal use. However, if your child is exposed to lead from other sources, a leaded lunch box would add to their health risk. Because lead has been shown to cause developmental problem in young children at very low levels, CEH believes it is important to eliminate all controllable sources of lead exposure, including lunch boxes.

Source: Center for Environmental Health (www.cehca.org)