Since this comes up all the time I decided it was finally time to write an article about this!

The question is:

“Tamara, what laundry detergent do you use when you want to get Lead dust out of laundry?”

Given the responses to this article (over the many years since it was first published), I want to note a bit of a caveat here: The context for this question is the need for getting Lead dust from an incident of Lead dust exposure out of fabric items. This is not about just washing laundry as you normally would (after wearing it for a day and being out an about in the world). The context for this question is when you need to wash clothes (or other fabric items) in response to scenarios along these lines:

• • 1. My spouse is a contractor and I need to help them wash their clothes at the end of the work day because they were doing dirty work on a Lead-contaminated (pre-1978) home. What type of detergent is best to get the Lead dust out of their clothes?
       • Note: Please encourage that person to get regular Blood Lead Level (BLL) testing before and after working on jobs to make sure they are staying safe! You can read more about that here.
    2. A contractor contaminated our home by sanding some Lead painted areas. My children were acutely poisoned by this, which I know because we got the kids’ blood Lead levels (BLLs) tested after the incident. In the aftermath of this incident, we are cleaning up the contamination in our home (while we live in alternate/ Lead-free temporary housing). Can I save our clothing (and other fabric items) by washing them? If so, what type of detergent is best?
    3. My kids were playing near a construction or demolition site (where an older building once stood)— their clothes are very dirty and I am concerned for Lead dust exposure. What kind of detergent should I use (after changing their clothes, making sure they take a good bath and taking them to the doctor and get a blood Lead test (BLL) for them first, of course!)? Read more about blood Lead testing here.

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The Answer:

If you have a concern for a specific (known/ confirmed or reasonably suspected) potential for Lead-dust contamination of your clothing (or other machine washable fabric items in your home — like sheets, pillows, blankets, comforters, stuffed animals, washable camping gear, etc.), here’s what you should do: Get the biggest package you can find of scent-free/ dye-free conventional (not “all natural,” not “surfactant-free,” not “organic”) laundry powder or liquid detergent (any conventional [scent-free, dye-free] mainstream brand will work — like Tide, All, Arm & Hammer — whatever you like!). You should then wash the (potentially-contaminated) items twice — two full cycles without drying in between (and without other items) using this detergent.

IMPORTANT: Depending on the potential (or confirmed) contamination source/ level of Lead contamination, if you have a baby in the home (or young children), you may want to run the machine empty (with this detergent and hot water) after you wash potentially contaminated laundry and before washing any of your normal household laundry. In this way, you can be certain that your machine is clean (clear of any residual Lead-dust) prior to washing your normal laundry with your normal detergent.

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Why these brands of detergent?

Conventional laundry detergent products have the surfactants needed to get Lead out of laundry/ fabric items, yet by getting the dye-free/ scent-free version, the products won’t have the primary chemicals that many kids are allergic to (or sensitive of). I learned this the hard way as my kids are highly allergic (and sensitive) to scents and dyes as a result of being acutely Lead poisoned as babies. 

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Companion article:
How to Get Lead Dust Out of Laundry.

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Not just for Laundry, but other uses, too!

For cleaning TOYS:

When my kids were poisoned (in 2005/ 2006) we also used conventional laundry detergent to clean all of the toys (in the dishwasher or the sink, with appropriate smaller quantities of detergent [less than one might use is the clothes washing machine] so as not to have a “Brady Bunch” moment

with the dishwasher!). We used the detergent to clean all of the fabric/ laundry items (including pillows and dolls that could be machine washed) as well. The surfactants in these conventional laundry detergents are really effective for cleaning many Lead-contaminated items (not just laundry/ fabric)!

For cleaning CONCRETE:

When our children were acutely poisoned, we also mixed the conventional laundry detergent with Trisodium Phosphate (TSP) in buckets of warm water (1/4 cup laundry detergent + 1/8 cup TSP in a 5 gallon bucket of warm-to-hot water) and used the solution to clean our concrete front porch (which was heavily Lead-contaminated from the work done on our home), scrubbing the solution into the concrete with wire brushes and vacuuming up the dirty water with a wet/dry shop vac (and then dumping the dirty solution down the toilet, which is legal for homeowners to do in most locations, but not legal for contractors to do!).

 

I know personally that this cleaning solution and method works (TSP + Conventional Laundry Detergent), because prior to using this cleaning method (and after we hired “Abatement Cleaners” to “clean” our home), our concrete front porch tested positive for levels higher than1,100 micrograms of Lead per square foot tested.

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Some background — for context (in terms of how horrific this number is!):

• When our children were acutely Lead poisoned in 2005, the Federal “Hazard Level” for Lead in dust (the level at and above which United States Federal Government agencies [HUD/ CDC/ EPA] considered Lead in dust to be harmful for children) was 40 micrograms of Lead per square foot tested. (You can learn more about our Lead-poisoning story by watching the documentary film I directed on the subject, linked here.)
• The 1990 scientific recommendation to the feds (the recommended hazard level made by scientists about 15 years before my children were acutely poisoned) was that Lead dust levels at 5 micrograms (per square foot) and higher should be considered unsafe for children. (See how much Lead in dust it takes to poison a child here.)
• The current (2023) official (federal) hazard level for Lead in dust is levels at or above 10 micrograms of Lead per square foot tested.
• There is an initiative currently being floated (in the Fall/ Winter of 2023) to lower that hazard level for Lead dust on floors to a true ZERO, with a detectable limit of 3.5 (micrograms of Lead in each square foot of dust sampled). Landlord groups and contractor groups are opposing this legislation.

After using the above-noted cleaning method our concrete front patio (of our historic home in the Irvington neighborhood of Portland, Oregon) tested “negative” for Lead, at the time this meant that we achieved a clearance test dust-wipe result of “less than 10 micrograms of Lead per square foot sampled” (which was the limit of detection at the time). Read more about dust wipe testing here.

To reiterate: You need to use a detergent with conventional surfactants to clean up Lead dust.  

Clorox wipes (and similar brands of disposible wipes like Lysol wipes, etc.) are bleach-free, and also have the surfactants necessary to clean up Lead dust — they are also good to use on non-launderable surfaces. Here’s a video showing how to best clean Lead dust off of floors using Clorox wipes.

Important Note: Most soaps or products intended to be safe on your skin (or used directly on skin) like baby wipes, or any soaps intended for washing your body, are not at all effective for cleaning up potential Lead contamination in your environment. In fact, cleaning solutions like this (especially cleaning cloths like baby wipes that are in solutions containing ingredients like aloe, lanolin and other moisturizers) might actually just spread Lead dust around the home, without removing any.

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What do you use to clean laundry the REST OF THE TIME?

Keep reading below to see the everyday laundry detergent I use in my home (i.e. when we are not involved in any project to clean up possible Lead dust contamination).

 

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The REST OF THE TIME
(when we are NOT cleaning up Lead dust!)

When we are just doing our daily laundry (and not worried about cleaning up any Lead dust hazards), we use scent-free, dye-free BioKleen.

Biokleen has surfactants, but they are plant-based; I have not tried to clean up Lead dust with this product, so I don’t know for sure that it would work for that application, which is why I recommend the “tried-and-true” Arm & Hammer for cleaning up Lead!

BioKleen detergent is super-concentrated, so there is less cumulative packaging as a result. It is also a local Pacific Northwest (Vancouver, WA) company! (Click the image to see this product on Amazon!*)

As always, thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions. I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment.

Sincerely,

Tamara Elise Rubin
Owner — Lead Safe Mama, LLC

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