Posted: Monday, March 16, 2020
Posted: Monday, March 16, 2020Introduction: Tamara Rubin is an 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 metallic contaminants – including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic. [bio link]
Target Threshold White Glazed Porcelain
Appetizer Plate
The full XRF test results of the Target Threshold white glazed porcelain appetizer plate pictured are below (so please scroll down). Here are links to some additional reading that may be of interest, based on your interest in the test results of this item:
- Click here to see more Target Threshold brand items I have tested.
- Click here to see more white ceramics that I have tested.
- Click here to see more “Made in Indonesia” items I have tested.
Stay Safe Out There!
A quick note from Tamara
Hey readers – I hope you are staying well out there with all that is going on in the world right now. I’m hanging out mostly at home with my children – and have been doing so for about 10 days now. I pulled them out of school over a week ago – just to be safe. Each of my three youngest sons have compromised immune systems (which manifests in different ways for each of them), due to having been Lead-poisoned as babies.
In between kid-wrangling I am working hard to publish literally HUNDREDS of new posts (with test results for various consumer goods I have tested over the past couple of years, but have not yet had a moment to report on!). These posts have created a backlog in my system for more than a year now – and it’s actually nice to have a *break* with some time to catch up! To make this happen as quickly as possible, I am (as with this post) 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 Target Threshold brand white glazed porcelain appetizer plate (Made in Indonesia) pictured on this post:
Food surface:
- Barium (Ba): 10,700 +/- 600 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 17,500 +/- 700 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 170 +/- 99 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 239 +/- 118 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 70 +/- 43 ppm
Back logo area:
- Barium (Ba): 10,200 +/- 700 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 4,097 +/- 226 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 19,600 +/- 1,000 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 1,663 +/- 166 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 3,946 +/- 382 ppm
Unglazed edge on back:
- Barium (Ba): 8.095 +/- 661 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 66 +/- 41 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 11,100 +/- 500 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 203 +/- 112
- Iron (Fe): 576 +/- 175 ppm
- Bismuth (Bi): 129 +/- 54 ppm
~ End of Post ~
Scroll down for additional photos of this item.
Would you say that this implies their large plate is also less free? I’ve been looking for inexpensive lead free ceramic plates for a long time.
Also , did you test any colors?
Hi Nidhi,
Probably (re the large plate question) – I have a few more examples I will be posting that will help inform your decision… so stay tuned! Their colored items can have Lead.
Tamara
Was there any update to this? I searched your site to see if you had tested the dinner plates since this comment but wasn’t seeing anything
How about the serving bowl? The bottom marking is the same.
Hi Tamara, I had a small piece of our vinyl floor tester at a lab and it came in at 14 ppb for mercury, and a little higher than that for lead. It is non-detected of measured in ppm. Is this still safe? I see for the above product, you say it is lead free, mercury free but if it contained an amount of lead or mercury that is below the ppm threshold, is that safe?
Hi Momo,
For consumer goods if the levels are effectively negative (below 1 ppm for most heavy metal toxicants) I am not normally concerned – at least when talking about Lead. This is based on the agreed upon understanding that the threshold of concern for Lead in Consumer goods (for children) is 90 ppm. If things test below 90 but still positive in PPM I usually call those items as “Lead-safe” – not “Lead-free.”
The exception is when those consumer goods might normally be ingested by a child (like with crayons.) In those cases I still consider them quite toxic at 1 or 2 or 4 ppm.
I know Mercury is incredibly toxic however I am not a Mercury expert so I cannot give you a definitive answer about that one.
For the purposes of my blog, I would classify it as “negative” within the limits of XRF testing – but you would have to ask a Mercury expert if that amount might be concerning in a floor. Of course I would prefer all things to be negative even below any ppb thresholds set for all heavy metals, but there is not a ppb threshold for consumer goods for heavy metals and I don’t know that there would be a readily available testing methodology (affordable to consumers) to test down to that level of specificity as well.
I think it is very possible for old flooring to contain mercury at that level because a thermometer broke on it at one point a long time ago OR it could be a contaminant from the manufacturing or construction process.
Tamara
I purchased 2 sets of Threshold dishes -8 plates, saucers mugs and bowls in November 2020 from Target in Knoxville Tn. I read all directions for taking care of them. They are dishwasher/ microwave safe. I am very disappointed that after a little over a year several are chipped.
Hi, Tamara! I am thinking of buying Target’s Threshold plain white porcelain espresso cup and saucer, Made in Indonesia, for a tea party for my kids. Do you think they would be lead- free like the salad plate you tested here on this page, which is also Threshold, made in Indonesia? Or would you stick with glass if you were me? Thank you so much.