Introduction:
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 XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for contaminants including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic.
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Colorforms came in to being in 1951. I was born in 1969 and I distinctly remember chewing on pieces from sets like this when I was a little kid. Do you? Given the potential for children to mouth these (including chewing and swallowing them) to have even one color test positive for such an incredibly high level of Lead (over 2,000 ppm in the orange vinyl in the set pictured here) is quite disturbing. The full test results for this set are below (please continue reading below each of the pictures of the item for additional test results).
How much Lead is too much Lead?
For modern toys to be legal (and not subject to recall) the paint or coating of the toy needs to be below 90 ppm Lead and the substrate of the toy needs to fall below 100 ppm Lead when tested. This set pictured in this post is from 1981 (30 years after they were first introduced and long after it was known that Lead exposure is unsafe for children!) so I am looking forward to testing and reporting on earlier sets (with different colors of vinyl pieces) to see how they compare.
Takeaway
My takeaway from having done this testing is that young children (especially the “pre-school” set that this was designed for) should not be allowed to play with ANY vintage Colorforms. I expect new Colorforms sets are Lead-free, to comply with current legislation, but I have not yet tested any.
Continue reading below the image.
Vintage Colorforms 1981 Colorforms
Mickey & Minnie Mouse Doctor and Nurse pre-school playset
Test #1) red vinyl pieces (on white background)
- Cadmium (Cd): 60 +/- 8 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 337 +/- 35 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 109 +/- 57 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 33,300 +/- 2,300 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 360,000 ppm
Test #2) white vinyl pieces (no surface color)
- Cadmium (Cd): 70 +/- 7 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 55 +/- 37 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 321 +/- 30 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 27,800 +/- 1,900 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 360,000 ppm
Test #3) yellow vinyl pieces (on white background)
- Lead (Pb): 14 +/- 7 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 59 +/- 7 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 306 +/- 29 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 29,100 +/- 1,900 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 360,000 ppm
Test #4) black vinyl pieces (on white background)
- Cadmium (Cd): 66 +/- 8 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 76 +/- 43 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 28 +/- 14 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 319 +/- 36 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 2,829 +/- 183 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 19,000 +/- 2,000 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 360,000 ppm
Continue reading below the image.
Test #5) blue vinyl pieces
- Lead (Pb): 12 +/- 6 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 53 +/- 7 ppm
- Tin (Sn): 20 +/- 10 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 43 +/- 16 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 41 +/- 25 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 11,100 +/- 1,400 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 360,000 ppm
Continue reading below the image.
Test #6) orange vinyl pieces
- Lead (Pb): 2,300 +/- 79 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 58 +/- 8 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 736 +/- 165 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 21 +/- 13 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 66 +/- 20 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 404 +/- 74 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 6,352 +/- 1,340 ppm
- Chlorine (Cl): 360,000 ppm
Continue reading below the image.
Note: The board is “Lead-safe”!
Here’s a set of readings for the board. I tested all colors on the board and all were either Lead-free or Lead-safe (positive for Lead at levels well below 90 ppm.) Here is one typical set of readings for the board (on a yellow area):
- Lead (Pb): 33 +/- 9 ppm
- Bromine (Br): 7 +/- 4 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 468 +/- 30 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 33 +/- 21 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 560 +/- 62 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 871 +/- 406 ppm
As always, thank you for reading and for sharing my posts. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
Leave a Reply