{"id":19200,"date":"2013-11-26T21:49:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-26T21:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/?p=313516"},"modified":"2013-11-26T21:49:23","modified_gmt":"2013-11-26T21:49:23","slug":"shoppers-beware-toxic-chemicals-found-in-150-consumer-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/shoppers-beware-toxic-chemicals-found-in-150-consumer-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Shoppers Beware: Toxic Chemicals Found in 150 Consumer Products"},"content":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/earring-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"earring\"><\/p>\n<p>Products with <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/10\/10\/how-daily-exposure-to-toxic-chemicals-can-trigger-serious-health-problems\/\" target=\"_blank\">chemical hazards<\/a> remain widely available in stores. Shoppers need to take caution this holiday season.<\/p>\n<p>Although major retailers such as Walmart and Target have established policies to address many of these chemical hazards, those retailers still carry many&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/10\/29\/congress-protect-families-toxic-chemicals\/\" target=\"_blank\">toxic products<\/a>. And many other retailers do not have such policies.<\/p>\n[caption id=\"attachment_313531\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"500\"]<a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/earring.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"earring\" src=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/earring.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"300\"><\/a> The gem in this earring cuff contains more than 1,000,000 ppm lead, says an informal survey by HealthyStuff.org. Photo credit: HealthyStuff.org[\/caption]\n<p>But a consumer armed with information, such as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthystuff.org\/get-stuff.php?report=Fall+2013+product+survey+results+released\" target=\"_blank\">this recent informal survey<\/a> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthystuff.org\/get-stuff.php?report=Fall+2013+product+survey+results+released\" target=\"_blank\">HealthyStuff.org<\/a>, can avoid these products.&nbsp;HealthyStuff.org, a project of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ecocenter.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Ecology Center<\/a>, recently looked at a number of consumer products to see what hazards are <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/10\/08\/avoid-toxic-chemicals-kids-products\/\" target=\"_blank\">sitting on store shelves<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line? &ldquo;We found we still have work to do,&rdquo; said Jeff Gearhart, research director at the Ecology Center and&nbsp;HealthyStuff.org.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers used x-ray fluorescence technology to examine 150 products from 11 national retailers for lead and other metals, hazardous flame retardants and phthtalate plasticizers.<\/p>\n<p>They found&nbsp;cooking utensils with brominated flame retardants, lead in jewelry and phthalates in flooring and exercise equipment. And despite retailers&#8217; chemical hazard policies, they still had products with toxic components on their shelves. For example, a&nbsp;red belt with silver studs made by No Boundaries and sold at Walmart had more than 1,000 ppm lead.<\/p>\n<p>Other examples of products in the report include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthystuff.org\/product.details.php?bcmode=search&amp;getrecno=27555\" target=\"_blank\">Men&rsquo;s cross-training gloves<\/a>&nbsp;contained brominated<a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/11\/19\/sweeping-policy-changes-critical-flame-retardants\/\" target=\"_blank\"> flame retardants<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>The gems of the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthystuff.org\/product.details.php?bcmode=search&amp;getrecno=27641\" target=\"_blank\">jewelry purchased at Claire&#8217;s and Icing<\/a>&nbsp;contained more than 100,000 ppm <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/11\/20\/avoid-buying-toxic-jewelry-for-kids-this-holiday-season\/\" target=\"_blank\">lead<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Two kitchen utensils, a slotted spoon and a&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.healthystuff.org\/product.details.php?bcmode=search&amp;getrecno=27655\" target=\"_blank\">slotted turner<\/a>, contained brominated <a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/2013\/11\/08\/film-exposes-dangers-flame-retardant-chemicals\/\" target=\"_blank\">flame retardants<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Other findings:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>More than three-quarters of the products contained at least one or more chemicals of concern at detectable levels.<\/li>\n<li>One-third had three or more chemicals of concern at detectable levels.<\/li>\n<li>Halogenated plastics and flame retardants were found in large numbers of products.&nbsp;About 46 percent contained polyvinyl chloride or chlorinated flame retardants. Nine percent&nbsp;contained brominated flame retardants.<\/li>\n<li>Hazardous heavy metals also were found. Twenty-three&nbsp;percent had levels of antimony above 100 ppm;&nbsp;36 percent had levels of tin above 100 ppm; and&nbsp;7 percent had levels of lead above 100 ppm.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>HealthyStuff.org and the Ecology Center support the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/org2.salsalabs.com\/o\/6639\/p\/dia\/action3\/common\/public\/?action_KEY=13539\" target=\"_blank\">Mind the Store campaign <\/a>organized by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saferchemicals.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Safer Chemicals\/Healthy Families<\/a>, which is urging consumers to pressure retailers to disclose the chemicals in the products on their shelves and to eliminate the worst known hazards.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/newsletter-signup\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"topnewsbanner1\" src=\"http:\/\/ecowatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/topnewsbanner13.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"120\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,57],"tags":[12201,1636,10847,12202,12205,7240],"class_list":["post-19200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-building-posts","category-leed-news","tag-featured-living","tag-jewelry","tag-lead","tag-living","tag-tips","tag-toxic-chemicals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19200\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}