Posted: Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Introduction: Tamara Rubin is a independent advocate for consumer goods safety, and she is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children. She began testing consumer goods for toxicants in 2009 and was the parent-advocate responsible for finding Lead in the popular fidget spinner toys in 2017. She uses high-precision XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for contaminants including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic. [bio link]
Hey readers – I hope you are staying well out there with all that is going on in the world right now!
I am working hard to get through literally HUNDREDS of posts that have created a backlog in my system for more than a year now. To make this happen, I am simply posting the images and the test results – without a lot of additional information. [Do not worry — I will continue to update them with more information as I get caught up and begin to have the time!]
For those new to my website, please check out the menu in the header of the website for more information about how I test things (and my background, etc.) On each post you can also click on any of the keyword tabs at the top of the post to find more items in that category. Here’s the post discussing the type of testing I do, and the specific instrument I use to detect, analyze and confirm metals content, and ultimately produce the resultant data for each item reported here – link.
Please Note: Test results reported below are science-based, accurate, and replicable. Test results reported here are from tests that were done for a minimum of 60 seconds each, and repeated multiple times, to confirm the results. As with all the testing reported here on my blog, a freshly-calibrated high-precision XRF instrument testing in Consumer Goods mode was used to test the item pictured here.
As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts!
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
Test results for the green glazed Ikea ceramic mug pictured:
Green Ikea mug – green glaze surface:
- Barium (Ba): 2,689 +/- 208 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 16,300 +/- 800 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 369 +/- 92 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 563 +/- 277 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 5,956 +/- 397 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 11,300 +/- 800 ppm
- Zirconium (Zr): 16,400 +/- 800 ppm
Green Ikea mug – unglazed rim:
- Lead (Pb): 43 +/-14 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 113 +/- 17 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 371 +/- 40 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 958 +/- 70 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 3,635 +/- 304 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 346 +/- 102 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 474 +/- 91 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 2,017 +/- 202 ppm
Some additional reading that may be of interest:
- Click here to see other Ikea items I have tested.
- Click here to see more mugs I have tested.
- Click here to read more about the concern for Lead in ceramics.
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