For those new to the Lead Safe Mama website:
Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her four sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005).
- Tamara owns and runs Lead Safe Mama, LLC — a unique community collaborative woman-owned small business for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety.
- Since July of 2022, the work of Lead Safe Mama, LLC has been responsible for five product recalls (FDA and CPSC).
- All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable.
- Please check out our press page to see some of the amazing coverage of our work so far this year!
Well, when I first laid eyes on this vintage lunchbox, it lit up my radar (based on my experience with consumer goods with this vintage look) — but when I tested it I was rather horrified that this is something someone used (likely at least five days a week, for decades) as a container to carry the original owner’s lunch. The individual toxicant levels in the metal that make up most of the case are each relatively low but still concerning, given the number of toxicants — in combination — this metal contains (see details below)… but then when you get to the handle and you take into account the fact that the box is carried this way, and that — assuming the original owner consistently washed their hands before lunch — it is rather unlikely they would happen to always wash their hands after touching the handle, before grabbing a sandwich or apple out of the lunchbox! It is quite concerning.
Something like this would not likely cause the acute poisoning of someone who used it daily but I think (especially given its nature as a lunchbox) it could easily add to the user’s chronic low-level exposure and aggregate body burden of these extremely potent neurotoxicants — a possible contributing factor or potentially significant source for the cause of “mystery” ailments later in life.
Most concerning: This vintage luchbox was given to me by a mother who was letting her child use it today (in 2019) as a container for his toys and other items. Of course, given it was designed, marketed, and used as a lunchbox (and given it is unpainted metal) she would have no reason to recognize this as an unsafe addition to her child’s things. She, too, however, was horrified when I tested it and she offered it to me for my “Evil Goods” collection, so I could report about it here on the site, ensuring other mothers (and fathers, grandparents) of young children might be educated about the potential concern — reconsidering any thoughts they might have about giving their child a vintage lunchbox to play with (or to use for their school lunch).
The test results below are from testing with an XRF instrument in “Consumer Goods” mode. Each test was conducted for a minimum of 60 seconds, and repeated multiple times to confirm the results. These results are science based, and replicable. The XRF Lead Safe Mama uses is the same instrument used by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to test for toxicants in newly manufactured consumer goods.
Test 1: Side of box, exterior
- Lead (Pb): 13 +/- 5 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): 24 +/- 9 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 164 +/- 56 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 104 +/- 13 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 64 +/- 15 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 4,211 +/- 101 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 23 +/- 6 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 456 +/- 271 ppm
Test 2: Exterior side of box
- Lead (Pb): 235 +/- 21 ppm
- Arsenic (As): 39 +/- 16 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 311 +/- 102 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 142 +/- 21 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 59 +/- 22 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 3,243 +/- 130 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 6,513 +/- 576 ppm
Test 3: Red plastic handle
- Lead (Pb): 16 +/- 5 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): 1,585 +/- 30 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 3,246 +/- 41 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 524 +/- 85 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 328 +/- 17 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 155 +/- 12 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 101 +/- 12 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 2,881 +/- 68 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 8 +/- 5 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 387 +/- 184 ppm
Takeaway: Buy new lunchboxes for your kids. New metal ones that are designed and sold specifically for children’s use should be completely free of all the toxic heavy metals found in the lunchbox shown here. I have not tested many new lunch boxes, but I will share one similar product here that I bought for my son and tested so you can see the metals profile on a newly made similar item: LINKED HERE.
To see more Thermos brand items I have tested (vintage and newer), click here.
To see more lunch boxes I have tested, click here.
As always, thank you for reading and sharing Lead Safe Mama articles.
Please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
Hi, I recently bought one of these as a gift for my dad. He likes to keep vintage nick-nacks as wall art. Do you think it will be safe for him to keep it in his house? Thanks for your time!
Hello, i obtained one of these bad boys from my grandpa, he received it from a friend. Its a rusted old black painted thermos like the one you showed and i’m currently trying to remove the rust.
Are all lunchboxes like this model/design toxic? If so i need options of what to do to it.
Hi Thor,
Yes – they are all likely to be high in Lead at least – and then these other things too… sorry to say.
Unfortunately because it is a food-use product I don’t recommend holding on to it – either sell it as a collectable with a Lead warning OR (better yet) destroy it – so it doesn’t contaminate someone else’s lunch in the future:
https://tamararubin.com/2019/12/what-should-i-do-with-my-lead-contaminated-dishes-to-toss-or-not-to-toss/
T