Healthy Stuff Lab wraps up 2013 with a new study that continues to show how toxic chemicals are found in a range of consumer products. This winter screening joins a series of studies Healthy Stuff Lab has released in the past months showing how toxic chemicals continue to lurk in everyday consumer products.
This 2013 wrap up, which looked at over 100 consumer products from 9 national retailers, found that nearly a quarter of the products contain levels of lead that exceed 100 parts per million (ppm), the limit the Consumer Product Safety Commission has set for children's products. These high levels of lead were primarily found in holiday decorations, including holiday beaded garlands and outdoor lights. One of the products, a set of earphones purchased at Best Buy, contained 33% of lead by weight. This study also found high levels of arsenic, two of which were light fixtures containing arsenic levels above 1,000 ppm. Nearly a third of the products tested contained high levels of bromine (above 400 ppm) suggesting the use of brominated flame retardants (BFRs).