I noticed these Christmas lights at my friend’s house and tested them. She doesn’t know exactly how old they are. She said they are at least 5 years old. Sorry, I don’t have a brand name on them. I do have an XRF reading though.
Here’s the XRF test results of the lights pictured (I would expect this range of results to be typical of most lights in the past 10 years and earlier.):
- Lead (Pb): 15,300 +/- 700 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): Non-Detect
- Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect
- Arsenic (As): Non-Detect
- Barium (Ba): 567 +/- 160 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): Non-Detect
- Antimony (Sb): 177 +/- 52 ppm
- Selenium (Se): Non-Detect
What I am seeing with some of the newer plug-in lights (2018) is that they are often negative for Lead, but positive for relatively high levels of Antimony. Please check out this link to see more Christmas lights that I have tested.
Antimony is also a possible carcinogen. As a result I would never let my children play with these types of lights (new or old, regardless of the Lead content.) If your children are going to help you decorate the tree, ideally they should wear gloves. If gloves aren’t handy – a thorough hand-washing is in order.
The new (2018) small electric battery powered strands seem to be free of both Lead and Antimony these days (or at least low-Antimony.)
As always, thank you for reading and for sharing my posts.
Please let me know if I can answer your questions at all.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
Have you ever tested lights from 2016? Not exactly vintage, but not new either. Hard to decide what to do with all the stuff that we own!